Chipscale mmW Switches

The biggest issues facing mmW components continue to be ones of fundamental high frequency performance and unit-to-unit repeatability. While solutions to these two basic issues are complex and multi-faceted, it is universally acknowledged that both the basic semiconductor performance at frequencies above 10 GHz and the unit variation are severely limited by packaging, die attach, and chip and wire assembly techniques. The purpose of this paper is to present a unique, fundamentally different approach to the packaging and integration of mmW components starting with the electrical input/output through final thermal heat sinking. This method is based upon a technology, HMIC, which utilizes standard semiconductor wafer scale processes to realize the final monolithic, chipscale, surface mountable element, in this case an mmW switch.