Miniaturized hybrid Antenna combining Si and IPD™ technologies for 60 GHz WLAN Applications

This paper presents the design of a packaged antenna including glass substrate. A square patch antenna is implemented on glass substrate exploiting IPD™ technology, and excited by a coupling slot implemented on BiCMOS B9MW technology (Low Resistivity (LR) Si - ρ = 12 Ω.cm). The described solution solves the interconnection problem between Silicon Integrated Circuits (ICs) and the antenna. The excitation structure is integrated on Silicon substrate using conventional process, thus reducing insertion losses usually caused by flip-chip or assembling techniques. The second advantage of this solution is the co-integration of the coupling slot with the RF front-end. This permits to match the antenna input impedance to the PA output impedance, with consequently improved power budget efficiency. This antenna achieves a simulated gain of 5 dBi at 60 GHz and a relative bandwidth of 8 %. A preliminary antenna on alumina and glass substrates has been realized in order to verify the flip-chip assembly process. The measurements results are in good agreement with simulation.