A W-Band Self-Packaged SIW-Based Slot Antenna With Gain and Bandwidth Enhancement

This study presents the design of a self-packaged substrate integrated waveguide (SIW)-based slot antenna with a low profile at the W-band. A
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4 SIW slot antenna array is developed using a standard printed circuit board (PCB) process. Then, the array is embedded in a silicon wafer. The loss of the benzocyclobutene (BCB)-based coplanar waveguide with ground (CPWG) to PCB-based SIW transition is investigated and measured to interconnect and integrate the antenna array with other components. The performance of the SIW-based slot antenna is enhanced about 2 dB without extra feeding networks by using a novel method of parasitic folded patches, and the fractional impedance bandwidth is increased from 10% to 15% by changing the metallic posts besides the SIW. The antennas are fabricated using our in-house silicon-based MEMS photosensitive composite film BCB fabrication process, which is described in detail. The proposed antenna has a measured maximum gain of 11.7 dBi at 98 GHz, with a fractional impedance bandwidth of 17%. Measured results show a close relationship with the simulated values. Compared with other antennas, our proposed antenna exhibits excellent performance, such as high gain, low profile, low loss interconnection structure, and broad bandwidth. Finally, a novel heterogeneous integration transceiver application is introduced. In this application, self-packaged SIW-based slot antennas are integrated with different types of chips. This 1 transmitter and 2 receivers (1T2R) transceiver can be further used in long-range radar detection, vital sign monitoring, and synthetic aperture radar imaging.