On-Chip Millimeter Wave Surface Wave Launcher for Off-Chip Leaky Wave Antennas

A novel concept to launch surface waves at millimeter wave (mmW) frequencies is presented. An on-chip antenna is used to launch a surface wave into an off-chip substrate circumventing the need for a lossy mmW interconnect. As a proof of concept, an on-chip Vivaldi antenna is used to feed the off-chip hologram of a holographic leaky wave antenna. The performance of the antenna is compared to the performance of the same hologram fed by a conventional off-chip surface wave launcher connected by bond wires. Simulation and measurement results are presented and show the advantage of the new concept.