Laminated waveguide couplers in LTCC technology

A VWG can be used as a low loss transmission media in LTCC conditional to the via wall pitch being kept sufficiently low. The feasibility of implementing half-wavelength narrow wall VWG couplers in an LTCC environment has also been demonstrated. The limited results presented herein. suggest that the coupling factors for VWG couplers are similar to those of a regular narrow wall coupler implemented in standard RWG. The directivity maxima of the 2- and 3-aperture VWG couplers presented herein occur at similar frequencies to that of standard narrow wall couplers when the half wavelength coupling section is calculated using the RWG propagation constant.