Integrated waveguide power combiners with artificial dielectrics for mm-wave systems

In this contribution we present a new class of N:1 power combiner based on synthetic waveguides integrated in silicon technologies back-end-of-line. The input feeding is based on (N) E field probes employing capacitive resonance, feeding a waveguide with artificial dielectrics (ADs). The signal summation occurs on a single transverse plane, thus providing insertion losses which do not scale with the number of inputs. This results in a combiner more compact and without restriction in the number of inputs compared to the traditional power of two (2
N
) combiners. The power combiner operation is presented in a BiCMOS technology implementation and analyzed by means of full wave electromagnetic (EM) simulations. Finally, the experimental results of an integrated 4:1 back-to-back-combiner operating in the 240–310GHz band is presented and compared with the full EM model.