Substrate Integrated Circuits (SICs) for low-cost high-density integration of millimeter-wave wireless systems

The attractiveness and popularity of substrate integrated circuits (SICs) now become more and more apparent in our microwave and millimeter-wave community with numerous academic publications and industrial developments. This paper reviews the progress and the state-of- the-art of SICs-related research for developing low-cost high- density integration of microwave and millimeter-wave wireless devices and systems as well as microwave photonic applications. It is found that SICs may well be regarded as the next generation of high-frequency integrated circuits on the basis of their historical development path starting from the hollow rectangular waveguide. Challenging issues and future directions are discussed for research and developments, suggesting that SICs would be able to offer a potentially cost- effective and performance-promising solution for mass commercial applications.