Broadband, mmW chipscale switches

Broadband components continue have the basic issues of fundamental high frequency performance and unit-to-unit reproducibility. While possible solutions to these two basic problems exist, it is universally acknowledged that both the basic semiconductor performance at frequencies above 10 GHz and the unit variation are severely limited by packaging, die attach, and chip and wire assembly techniques. The purpose of this paper is to present a unique, fundamentally different approach to the packaging and monolithic integration of ultra wideband switches which not only includes the electrical input/output but also device thermal heat sinking. This method is based upon a technology, HMIC, which utilizes standard semiconductor wafer scale processes to realize the final monolithic, surface mountable element, in this case a single pole four throw multi octave switch.