Novel 3 port characterisation and de-embedding for high performance on-silicon K/sub a/ band balun

A 3 port de-embedding technique is presented. The method is used to accurately characterise the performance of an on-silicon multilayer balun. Three de-embedding structures have been fabricated along with the balun itself. From 25 to 40 GHz the de-embedded balun achieves phase and magnitude imbalances of less than 5 degrees and 1 dB, respectively. Excellent correspondence between the measured balun parameters and EM simulation results is observed after de-embedding is applied.