Packaged hybrid Si-IPD™ antenna for 60 GHz applications

This paper presents the design of a packaged antenna including glass substrate. A rectangular patch antenna is implemented on glass substrate exploiting IPD™ technology, and excited by a quarter wavelength slot dipole implemented on BiCMOS B9MW technology (Low Resistivity (LR) Si - ρ = 12 Ω.cm). The described solution solves the interconnection problem between Silicon Integrated Circuits (ICs) and the antenna. The primary source is integrated on Silicon substrate using conventional process, thus reducing insertion losses usually caused by flip-chip or assembling techniques. The second advantage of this solution is the co-integration of the slot dipole with the RF front-end. This permits to match the antenna input impedance to the PA output impedance, with consequently improved power budget efficiency. This antenna achieves a simulated gain of 5 dBi at 60 GHz and a relative bandwidth of 8 %. To address Wireless HD applications, an antenna array is envisaged. Beamforming techniques are therefore investigated for enhancing gain and offering beamforming capabilities for the targeted system depending on the considered usage model.