A Ka-band transceiver module based on LTCC technology

A Ka-band low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) transceiver is demonstrated in this paper. The proposed module is composed of several bare monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC) and passive circuits. These MMICs including LNA, phase shifter, attenuator, SPDT switch, driver amplifier, power amplifier have been mounted onto LTCC substrate. The passive circuits like bandpass filter and waveguide to microstrip transition have been embedded into the substrate. The whole transceiver is fabricated in a 36mm×20mm×1.1mm LTCC board with eleven layers. The front-end is designed to operate from 34 to 36 GHz. Measurement shows that the gain of the receiver is 33 dB; noise figure is less than 4.2 dB. Output power of transmitter is greater than 24.6 dBm, while the measured gain is more than 25 dB. The implementation of this transceiver indicates that LTCC technology is well suited for highly integrated microwave and millimeterwave module.