Performance of a Compact Dual Six-Port Millimeter-Wave Network Analyzer

This paper presents a millimeter-wave network analyzer incorporating two six-port correlators for the measurement of the reflection and transmission coefficients of a device under test in the frequency band 59-61 GHz. An instrumentation integrating the hardware and software resources, including advantages such as robustness, compactness, relatively low cost, small size, and real-time operation, is developed. The millimeter-wave part of the system is implemented on a thin alumina ceramic substrate. The proposed solution eliminates the need for complex heterodyne schemes and for bulky tuning mechanisms generally found in dual six-port network analyzers. Associated to this system, an explicit calibration procedure is proposed. The performance, in terms of measurement accuracy, is evaluated by comparing the results obtained from the system proposed with those given by a conventional network analyzer.