H-Band Quartz-Silicon Leaky-Wave Lens With Air-Bridge Interconnect to GaAs Front-End

Abstract

Thanks to the large bandwidth availability, millimeter and sub-millimeter wave systems are getting more attractive to be used in a wide range of applications, such as highresolution radar or high-speed communications. In this contribution, a new lens antenna in-package solution is presented for the H-band (220-320 GHz), including a wideband quartzcavity leaky-wave feed combined with an air-bridge chip interconnect technology, based on spray coating and laser lithography. This interconnection acts as a wideband, low-loss transition between the GaAs front-end and the quartz antenna, avoiding the use of expensive waveguide split-blocks. An antenna prototype including the interconnect has been manufactured and characterized, validating the full-wave simulated results for the integrated H-band leaky-wave with aperture efficiency higher than 74% over 34% bandwidth, and radiation efficiency higher than 70% over 37% of bandwidth. Index Terms-mm-wave, H-band, lens antenna, leaky-wave antenna, air-bridge chip interconnect, off-chip antenna, antennain-package. I. INTRODUCTION HE development of integrated systems at mm-and submm waves is leveraged by the growing interest in new applications requiring large bandwidth. Radar and communication are probably the most representative industries which promote and will profit from the emergence of the use of higher frequency bands [1]-[3]. The standardization of wireless communications at carrier frequencies in the 300 GHz band has already begun [4]. While allowing for larger bandwidths, the use of higher frequencies comes with increased propagation spreading loss and lower output power,