On the Yield of Millimeter-Wave Bond-Wire-Antennas in High Volume Production

For the development of highly integrated millimeter-wave front-end modules, a low-cost and high-performance antenna technology is of paramount importance. Here, standard wire-bond technology is a very attractive candidate due to its widespread availability, computationally efficient modeling options, and promising performance as an antenna. A concern often stated with respect to antennas in this technology, however, is its expected low yield in high volume production. This concern is addressed in this communication by means of a dedicated, computationally efficient antenna model in conjunction with standard deviations of state-of-the-art wire-bonders. The results indicate a possible yield of larger than 99.9% for operating frequencies of up to 250 GHz.