Towards Additive Manufacturing Based Packaging of Mm-Wave Antenna Arrays and Beamformer ICs

Laser enhanced direct print additive manufacturing (LE-DPAM) technology has recently been demonstrated to achieve success in packaging of antennas with phase shifters to realize passive phased antenna arrays (PAAs). Utilizing LE-DPAM for PAAs operating in mm-wave bands brings out new challenges that need to be addressed. These challenges are associated with smaller antenna and feature sizes needed for mm-wave band operation, necessity of active circuits for amplification, and number of pads, pad size and pad locations of mm-wave beamformer IC packages. This paper presents our initial progress in scaling LE-DPAM based packaging of PAAs into the mm-wave band operation through consideration and demonstration of discrete components (i.e. antenna array elements and beamformer ICs) that form the PAA structure. Specifically, a stand-alone, passive, 2×2 LE-DPAM based 26 GHz antenna subarray is investigated for its performance. In addition, a 24.5 GHz – 27 GHz beamformer IC is packaged in a stand-alone test article using LE-DPAM and investigated for its mm-wave performance and thermal aspects.