International Journal of Electronics and Telecommunications

Abstract

Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) transmitters are often fabricated using advanced technology and require a sophisticated manufacturing facility. Access to such technologies is often very limited and difficult to gain particularly at the initial stage of research. Therefore, to increase the accessibility of mm-wave transmitters, this study proposes a design that can be assembled in a standard microwave laboratory from commercially available or externally ordered components. The transmitter demonstrated in this paper operates above 100 GHz and is based on a lowtemperature co-fired ceramic board in which the antenna array, microstrip lines, and power-supply lines are fabricated in a single process. Different technologies are used to assemble the module, e.g., wire-bonding, soldering, and wax adhesion. Advantages and disadvantages of the proposed design are given based on experimental evaluation of the prototype. Although the performance of the developed transmitter is not as good as that of the similar modules available in the recent literature, the results confirm the feasibility of a mm-wave transmitter that is assembled without employing advanced technologies and superior machinery. Keywords-antenna-in-package; LTCC circuits and modules; millimeter-waves; RF modules; RFIC and MMIC packaging; silicon lenses I. INTRODUCTIONYSTEM-IN-PACKAGE transceivers are essential for ubiquitous implementation of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communication devices. The integration of fundamental building blocks (e.g., amplifiers, frequency multipliers, frequency converters, and antennas) has significantly increased over the last two decades [1]-[3]. However, the integration of directional antenna arrays in mm-wave modules with frequencies above 100 GHz remains an interesting topic for further research [4]- [7]. The two most popular methods for integration of components and antenna into a complete selfcontained module are the antenna-on-chip (AoC) and antennain-package (AiP) methods.