High-performance Marchand-type balun design and fabrication using an integrated passives device (IPD) technology

The integrated passive device (IPD) technology was currently developed for high performance, small volume or size, low cost and multi-functional integration for wireless RF front-end applications. Especially wafer level packaging technologies offer an interesting variety of different possibilities for the implementation of integrated passive components. The IPD process is made by a low-cost manufacturing technology and a high-performance process technology of electro-chemically forming spin coating layer on glass wafer and processing thick-Cu interconnects and polyimide dielectrics. In this paper, an integrated Marchand-type balun for 2.45-GHz WLAN applications is presented and exhibit excellent measured performance with insertion loss of 1 dB. The measured amplitude balance and phase balance of 0.45 dB and 3 degree, and common mode rejection ratio of 28 dB were realized. Finally, EM simulation and experimental verification show very good agreement between simulated and measured results by validating IPD design process.