Optimum Launch-Taper Matching Technique for mm-Wave Applications

An optimum launch-taper matching technique at mm-wave band is presented in this paper. End launch connectors are used to excite the feeding trace, and may lead to a short-circuit condition under certain situations; thus, degrading the matching at the feeding point. The short-circuit condition happens when the width of the feeding trace is greater than the diameter of the connector's dielectric. In this paper, an optimized tapered matching technique is proposed to attain good matching. The work is presented for Ka-band (26.5-40 GHz) using different substrate materials to encounter the problems faced during the excitation of different antennas. Measured results of fabricated prototypes agree very well with simulated ones.