Ultraminiaturized WLAN RF Receiver Module in Thin Organic Substrate

This paper presents the design, analysis, and demonstration of an ultra-thin wireless local area network (WLAN) RF receiver module with chip-last embedded actives and embedded passives in a low-loss organic substrate using system-on-package approach. The overall thickness of the module, including the embedded dies, is 160 μm- more than 3× thickness reduction compared to current wire-bond and flip-chip packages. The receiver module consists of gallium arsenide low-noise amplifier (LNA) dies, chip-last embedded in an ultrathin, low-loss organic substrate, and connected to a substrate-embedded three-metal-layer band-pass filter (BPF) in close proximity. Full-wave electromagnetic simulation was performed on a 3-D model of the designed receiver module to obtain its two-port scattering parameters (S-parameters) and to study noise coupling between the power-supply network and the signal path. The receiver module was then fabricated, tested for yield of the BPF, assembled and characterized, and the measured results were correlated with simulation. The BPF dimensions in the package were 1.5 mm × 2.9 mm × 0.15 mm, and its measured pass-band insertion loss was 2.3 dB with more than 15 dB return loss. The receiver module (LNA + BPF) dimensions were 5.5 mm ×2 mm ×0.16 mm, and it had a measured peak gain of 11 dB with more than 30 dB attenuation in the adjacent-band, indicating excellent performance in a miniaturized form-factor.