On-chip antennas and PCB packaged phased-array radar receiver front-end at mm-wave frequencies

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1620282 (Table of Contents)

In this dissertation, on-chip antennas for integration in a single RFIC radar chip and alternative wire-bonded PCB/chip package for 77 GHz automotive radar front-end are studied and manufactured. To meet the purpose of dissertation, design and implementation of flat, L-shaped and T-shaped W-band on-chip strip dipole antennas integrated with a LC balun circuit are presented. The on-chip antennas and the balun circuit are realized by using IHP’s 0.25 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology with a localized back-side etch (LBE) module to decrease substrate loss. It has been observed that measurements are highly influenced by the antenna placements and the ACP110-A-GSG-100 probe. Thus, a software calibration is performed similar to a network analyzer calibration to model the effect of ACP probe, and then the antenna reflection coefficient is calculated using the modeled probe-fed antenna. Finally, a low cost 77 GHz 4-element phased-array radar receiver front-end module is designed and manufactured using PCB patch antennas to get rid of on-chip antennas surface wave and achieve better array gain. The receiver package is implemented by integrating active phase shifter chips on a single layer Rogers 3003 PCB board using ball-to-wedge bonding with insertion loss less than 7.5 dB at 77 GHz; this loss is compensated by the gain of chips’ LNA. A novel method which exploits Klopfenstein tapering is used to connect coplanar waveguide to microstrip line at W-band frequency for chip to PCB board transition. The measured gains of the phased-array receiver and passive 4-element antenna array are compared. The receiver and passive array achieve the maximum gains of 9.7 dBi and 10.4 dBi at 77 GHz. The beam can be steered to ±30°.