Development of Micromachined Millimeter-Wave Modules for Next-Generation Wireless Transceiver Front-Ends
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DEVELOPMENT OF MICROMACHINED MILLIMETER-WAVE MODULES FOR NEXT-GENERATION WIRELESS TRANSCEIVER FRONT-ENDS A Thesis Presented to The Academic Faculty by Bo PAN In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology August 2008 DEVELOPMENT OF MICROMACHINED MILLIMETER-WAVE MODULES FOR NEXT-GENERATION WIRELESS TRANSCEIVER FRONT-ENDS Approved by: Dr. Manos Tentzeris, co-advisor Dr. John Papapolymerou, co-advisor School of Electrical and Computer School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Joy Laskar Dr. John Cressler School of Electrical and Computer School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Gordon St¨uber Dr. John Z. Zhang School of Electrical and Computer School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology Date Approved: 30 April 2008 To my beloved family iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Spending five years for PhD in Georgia Tech is a hard journey. However, it becomes worthy when I have received a lot of help, companionship, and encouragement from people listed below. First, I want to thank my two advisors for their encouragement, insight and help. Their willing to share their life experiences with me, their professional attitudes towards high quality research, their belief and respect for innovation and hard work, and their generous financial support for all my research activities are a part of a life-time gift. I still keep their original comments on some papers I wrote. I always take it as a great privilege studying under their guidance. I want to thank my proposal and defense committee members for their time and sug- gestions. I would like to thank all my colleagues from ATHENA and MIRCTECH research groups, as well as all of my friends. Yuan and Guoan, my dissertation would not have be completed without their help and friendship. I have learnt a lot from them in research and personalities. Tony, Zhan, Zhensheng, Naiyu, Jonghoon, Dane, Pete, Ramanan, Nick, Matt, Ilkwon, Boyon, Xin Gao, Ate, and Yanzhu, thank all of them for their generous help in research and companionship in these years. I also thank Dr. Ronglin Li, Dr. George Ponchak, Prof. Yongkyu Yoon and Prof. Mark Allen for their help in my research. I want to thank wonderful GEDC crews including Ms. Joi Adams, Ms. Angelika Braig, Ms. DeeDee Bennett, MiRC staffs including Mr. Gary Spinner, Mr. Charlie Suh, Ms. Laureen Rose, as well as Mr. Dennis Brown from GTRI Marchine shop. I owe too much for my parents, Haofa Pan and Huiping Liu, for their endless love and unlimited support to help me walk out of a small town in the northwest of China to see the outer world. I also want to thank my brother Gang Pan and my parents-in-law, Gongrong Yan and Yuying Shi, for supporting me and giving me so much good advice. I reserve this final paragraph for my great and lovely wife Shan Yan. I know this five iv year of not being together is too much for you. I can not find any single word to express my deepest gratitude for your love, faith, understanding and support. v TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION....................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................ iv LIST OF TABLES .................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES.................................... x LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS..................... xv SUMMARY......................................... xvii I INTRODUCTION.................................. 1 1.1 Background . .1 1.2 Micromachining Technologies . .2 1.3 Enabling technology: concept of Polymer-core conductor . .5 1.3.1 Properties of SU-8 . .5 1.3.2 Fabrication flow for a polymer-core conductor . .7 1.3.3 Advantages of a polymer-core conductor . 12 1.4 Contributions and organization . 12 II A W-BAND MICROMACHINED MONOPOLE................. 14 2.1 Motivation . 14 2.2 W-band monopole . 15 2.2.1 monopole design . 16 2.2.2 monopole fabrication and testing results . 17 2.2.3 Effects of ground bridge . 21 2.3 Chapter summary . 23 III A MICROMACHINED PATCH ANTENNA ................... 24 3.1 Background . 24 3.2 Antenna design . 26 3.3 Fabrication and measurement . 27 3.4 Discussion . 34 3.5 Chapter summary . 36 vi IV A MICROMACHINED HORN ANTENNAS................... 38 4.1 Background . 38 4.2 Design and optimization . 40 4.2.1 Design of the feeding and transition . 40 4.2.2 Design of the horn . 41 4.3 Fabrication and measurement . 44 4.4 Chapter summary . 46 V A BROADBAND ELEVATED MICROSTRIP COUPLER........... 49 5.1 Background . 49 5.2 Elevated coupler design . 51 5.3 Fabrication and measurement . 54 5.4 Chapter summary . 57 VI MICROMACHINED CAVITY RESONATOR .................. 58 6.1 Background . 58 6.2 Design and optmization . 59 6.3 Fabrication and measurement . 61 6.4 Discussion . 64 6.5 Chapter summary . 66 VII MICROMACHINED ALL-POLE BAND-PASS CAVITY FILTERS . 67 7.1 Background . 67 7.2 Proposed polymer-core conductor surface micromachining technology for filter implementation . 68 7.2.1 Feeding scheme . 72 7.2.2 Design flow . 72 7.2.3 Fabrication flow . 73 7.3 Development of an elevated waveguide iris filter with a CPW-waveguide transition . 73 7.4 An elevated cavity filter with current probes directly fed into resonating cavities . 78 7.5 Discussion . 82 7.5.1 Dealing with air bubbles . 82 vii 7.5.2 Impact of a tilted substrate . 83 7.6 Chapter summary . 85 VIII MICROMACHINED TRANSMISSION-ZERO FILTERS............ 86 8.1 Background . 86 8.2 A 4-pole transmission-zero filter using both electrical and magnetic coupling 86 8.2.1 A novel electrical coupling design for cross-coupling . 88 8.2.2 Transmission-zero filter design . 91 8.2.3 Fabrication and measurement . 94 8.3 A transmission-zero filter with direct source-loading coupling . 95 8.3.1 Design and optimization . 96 8.3.2 Fabrication and measurement . 100 8.4 Discussions . 101 8.5 Chapter summary . 103 IX INTEGRATION OF MICROMACHINED COMPONENTS INTO A FULLY-DUPLEX TRANSCEIVER FRONT-END .......................... 104 9.1 System planning . 106 9.1.1 Choosing appropriate topology . 106 9.2 V-band duplexer development . 109 9.2.1 filter design for each channel . 111 9.2.2 T-junction design and duplexer optimization . 113 9.2.3 Fabrication and measurement . 114 9.3 Antenna development for integration . 117 9.3.1 horn optimized for front-end integration . 117 9.4 Duplexer/Antenna integration . 118 9.5 Amplifier integration . 120 9.5.1 wireless transmission testing . 126 9.5.2 Radiation pattern and gain measurement . 127 9.6 Chapter summary . 130 X CONTRIBUTIONS AND PUBLICATION TO DATE . 131 viii LIST OF TABLES 1.1 SU-8 physical properties. .6 3.1 Dimensions of the micromachined patch antenna. 27 3.2 Performance comparison for antennas with and without elevation. 32 4.1 Optimized horn dimensions with transition(Units: mm). 43 5.1 Dimensions of the optimized elevated coupler. 53 6.1 Dimensions of the micromachined cavity. 61 6.2 Comparison of simulated and measured cavity performance. 63 7.1 Comparisons of waveguide/cavity insertion losses for different conditions . 71 7.2 Optimized filter dimensions (Units: mm). 75 7.3 Comparison of simulated and measured filter responses . 76 7.4 Optimized filter dimensions (Units: mm). ................... 79 7.5 Pillar height difference versus different tilting angles. 84 8.1 Optimized dimensions of 4-pole transmission zero filters (units:mm).... 93 8.2 Optimized filter dimensions. (units: mm) . 99 8.3 Comparison of simulated and measured responses (units: GHz) . 101 9.1 Optimized dimensions of 4-pole transmission zero filters (units:mm).... 112 9.2 Optimized simulation results for a duplexer . 114 9.3 Theoretical gain calculation breakdown . 129 ix LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 (a)vertical sidewall pillars SU-8 pillars, demonstrating its capability of build- ing high aspect-ratio structures (b)general fabrication flow of SU-8.(Courtesy of MicroChem) . .6 1.2 SU-8 2000 spin speed versus thickness. .7 1.3 (a) The solid conductor vs. hollow conductor (b) polymer core of the con- ductor vs. after metallization (Courtesy of Y. K. Yoon [80]). .8 1.4 A general fabrication flow for polymer-core conductor with a CPW feeding line9 2.1 Schematic of a CPW-fed micromachined monopole antenna. 15 2.2 Top view of a CPW-fed micromachined monopole antenna. 16 2.3 Optimization of CPW line dimensions for different substrates. 17 2.4 Full-wave simulated return loss performance of the micromachined monopole on silicon and sapphire substrates. 18 2.5 CPW line attenuation versus frequency on a soda-lime glass substrate. 19 2.6 fabrication flow of a CPW-fed monopole. 20 2.7 SEM picture of the micromachined monopole. 20 2.8 SEM picture of the micromachined monopole. 20 2.9 3 by 3 monopole arrays on a glass wafer. 21 2.10 Return loss simulation and measurement result for a 700 micron-high monopole 22 2.11 Return loss simulation and measurement result for a 800 micron-high monopole 22 2.12 SEM picture of a CPW-fed monopole with CPW ground connected using bonding wires . 23 3.1 Schematic of the proposed elevated patch antenna fed by a CPW-connected micromachined current probe. 25 3.2 Simulated radiation pattern for the elevated patch antenna. 28 3.3 A picture of a fabricated micromachined patch with its image on the metal ground also shown. ..