Design and verification of SMT MMIC package using a 20 GHz LNA, a 40 GHz LNA and a 40GHz digital attenuator

A surface mounting (SMT) low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) MMIC package was developed using new vertical transition consist of a trough line, a slab line, and shielded multilayer coplanar waveguides (SMCPWs) for DC to 50 GHz band applications. A 20 GHz LNA, a 40 GHz LNA and a 40 GHz 5-bit digital attenuator were packaged to verify the performances of the developed LTCC SMT MMIC package. The packaged 20 GHz LNA has less than 0.3 dB gain degradation, compared with the on-wafer measurement. The packaged 40 GHz LNA has some differences with on-wafer measurement due to the size mismatch with the MMIC package. The packaged 40 GHz attenuator exhibits a negligible degradation of the attenuation accuracy, compared to the on-wafer results.