On-chip, efficient and small antenna array for millimeter-wave applications

The high path losses experienced by wireless applications at millimeter wavelengths may be mitigated using high gain antennas. The intrinsic small wavelengths makes very attractive to develop solutions with on-chip integrated antennas. However, due to silicon high losses, on-chip antenna elements on RFCMOS technology have reduced efficiency. This paper proposes a solution to obtain an on-chip integrated antenna array based on 3D efficient antenna elements. A 4 element antenna was designed to operate at 57.5 GHz central frequency, with maximum gain of 5.8 dB, and maximum expected efficiency of 45%.