Current status and future trends for Si and compound MMICs in millimeter-wave regime and related issues for system on chip (SOC) and/or system in package (SIP) applications

The anticipated presentation will cover the current status and future trends of millimeter-wave MMICs, including those using III-V compound (GaAs, InP, GaN, etc.) and Si-based (CMOS, SiGe HBT and BiCMOS) MMIC technologies. Millimeter-wave MMICs used to be applied to military and astronomy systems for long time and started to be utilized for civil applications in the decade, such as communications and automotive radars. The evolution of IC technologies has enabled the performance of Si-based MMICs over 100 GHz, even in standard bulk CMOS processes. This is believed to have a major impact in the future development of millimeter-wave systems. Since low-cost mass-production potential pushes forward the technology, a very high integration of circuit functions on a chip, such as RF, base-band circuitry, automatic-control for a steady operation, and maybe even the antenna, etc. should be included, and thus the system on chip (SOC) issues should be addressed, especially in MMW regime. Moreover, millimeter-wave packaging cost always dominated in the module development. In order to simplify the assembly and reduced cost, the concept of system in package (SIP) has been proposed. This presentation will also survey the current technologies for SOC and SIP and discuss related issues and challenges.