Ultra-High-Speed Multichannel Data Transmission Using Hybrid Substrate Integrated Waveguides

Hybrid substrate integrated waveguides (SIWs) are proposed as an alternative low-cost interconnect solution to enable ultra-high-speed signal transmission. The SIW serves as a bandpass data transmission channel providing 15-GHz bandwidth. The hybrid structure utilizes the available low-pass frequency region below the cutoff frequency by adding striplines inside the waveguide. This technique of substrate reuse allows several independent data channels to be transmitted simultaneously through the hybrid structure. Hence, the channel capacity is increased without changing the overall waveguide footprint. Transition structures for routing striplines in the waveguide are designed and optimized through full-wave simulations. A number of test structures are fabricated to investigate data transmission using single and hybrid SIW interconnects. Experiments, as well as system simulations, demonstrate the capability of these interconnects for achieving ultra-high-speed data transmission. The hybrid waveguide system yields 15-Gb/s aggregate data transmission with excellent signal integrity characteristics. The proposed hybrid structure suggests an alternative solution for implementation of parallel data transmission systems with significant increase in the total channel throughput.