Probe-fed measurement system for F-band antennas

Leveraging the performances offer at MilliMeter-Wave (MMW) by advanced BiCMOS and CMOS technologies, various researches have evaluated the potential of silicon technologies to develop cost effective MMW applications (60 GHz wireless link is a good example). But MMW applications do not only require low cost RFICs, the development of low cost antenna and package is also a key issue. This point has been largely investigated at 60 GHz to address both antenna characterization and the development of low cost packaging technologies. Since 60 GHz technology is currently under deployment in products (WiGig standard), research activity is moving higher in frequency in order to achieve higher data rates (@ 120 GHz or beyond 200 GHz), which makes necessary to develop dedicated antenna measurement setup. In this paper, we present a 3D radiation pattern measurement setup for probe-fed F-band (90-140 GHz) antennas and we evaluate its performances using preliminary antenna design achieved in glass IPD^TM technologies.