77 GHz MEMS antennas on high-resistivity silicon for linear and circular polarization

Two new MEMS antennas operating at 77 GHz are presented in this paper. The first antenna is linearly polarized. It possesses a vertical silicon wall that carries a dipole on top of it. The wall is located on top of silicon substrate covered with a ground plane. The other side of the substrate carries a microstrip feeding network in the form of “U-turn” that causes 180° phase shift. This phase-shifter feeds the arms of the dipole antenna via two vertical Through-Silicon Vias (TSVs) that go through the entire wafer. The second antenna is circularly polarized and formed using two linearly polarized antennas spatially rotated with respect to each other by 90° and excited with 90° phase shift. Both antennas are fabricated using novel process flow on a single high-resistivity silicon wafer via bulk micromachining. Only three processing steps are required to fabricate these antennas. The proposed antennas have appealing characteristics, such as high polarization purity, high gain, and high radiation efficiency.