Comparison of Radiation from Two Microprocessor Test Packages

Radiation directly from integrated circuits (ICs) packages is conventionally not considered significant since the size of the package is electrically small and not considered as an efficient antenna. However, as the technology evolves and operating frequency increases, the size of the microprocessor package is no longer electrically small. Moreover, in todays and in future mobile platforms such as notebooks and ultra-mobile devices (UMDs), the high performance wireless communication system and powerful computing system are integrated together. It is not necessary to have an efficient antenna to couple energy from the noise source to the wireless system and degrade its performance because of the sensitivity level of the wireless receiver. In this paper, the radiation from two microprocessor test packages is compared. The results show that the package design has significant impact on the radiation from the package.