Antenna in package design for WLAN using MCM-D manufacturing technology

This paper introduces an antenna design based on MCM-D manufacturing technology to realize an antenna-integrated package for IEEE 802.11b/g application. Co-design guidelines are employed to include the parasitic effects caused by the integration of the antenna and the RF module. The loop antenna is located on the second layer of the MCM-D substrate. The antenna incorporates the capacitively feed strip which is fed by the coplanar waveguide (CPW). By the coupling feed technique, the size of the proposed antenna is only 3.8 mm × 4.7 mm over the WLAN band (2.4-2.484 GHz). Furthermore, the resonant frequency can be adjusted by tuning the length of the coupling strip. The results show that the coupling-fed loop antenna achieved a gain of 1.6 dBi and radiation efficiency of 85 % at 2.45 GHz in a very compact size (0.03 λ₀ × 0.04 λ₀). In addition, the occupied area of the antenna is very small (4.4%) compared to the overall area of the package; therefore, the proposed method is very useful for package antenna design. The detailed parameters studies are presented, which demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.