Gain enhancement of low profile on-chip dipole antenna via Artificial Magnetic Conductor at 94 GHz

The bottleneck for realizing high efficiency System-on-Chip is integrating the antenna on the lossy silicon substrate. To shield the antenna from the silicon, a ground plane can be used. However, the ultra-thin oxide does not provide enough separation between the antenna and the ground plane. In this work, we demonstrate one of the highest reported gains to date for low profile 94 GHz on-chip dipole antenna while the ground plane is in the lowest metal in the oxide (M1). This is achieved by optimizing an Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) structure midway the antenna and M1. The dipole antenna without the AMC has a gain of - 11 dBi while with the AMC structure a gain of + 4.8 dBi and hence achieving a gain enhancement of + 15.8 dB.