Membrane-supported Yagi-Uda MM-Wave antennas

This paper presents the design, fabrication and "on wafer" characterization of membrane-supported Yagi-Uda CPW fed antenna structures. The antennas were designed for the 60 GHz and 77 GHz frequency operating ranges. The 60 GHz antennas were fabricated on a semi-insulating GaAs membrane using GaAs micromachining. The 77 GHz antennas were manufactured on 1.4 μm thin SiO
₂
/Si
₃
N
₄
membranes obtained by micromachining of high resistivity silicon, using backside wet etching process. The design was based on electromagnetic simulations, using Zeland IE3D software package. The antenna structures were measured "on wafer" and have shown good experimental results in good agreement with the simulated ones.