Full-wave analysis of conductor losses on MMIC transmission lines

A mode-matching analysis of lossy planar transmission lines is presented. This method uses a modified mode-matching technique developed for travelling-wave FET analysis. The metallic layers are treated in the same way as the remaining waveguide subregions, with each of them characterized by its complex dielectric constant. This leads to a fully self-consistent description of the conductor losses. In contrast to the usual perturbation methods, it includes metallic loss by a self-consistent description without any skin-effect approximation. The analysis holds for arbitrarily high losses and also for metallization dimensions smaller than the skin depth. The approach is validated by comparison with previous experimental and theoretical work. Monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) microstrip and coplanar lines are investigated. The variation in propagation characteristics for typical metallization thickness is studied and the consequences with regard to MMIC design are discussed. For the coplanar waveguides (CPWs) significant deviations compared to the conventional assumption of lossless zero-thickness strips are found