60 GHz On-Chip BiCMOS Bow-Tie Antenna

A fully integrated bow-tie antenna for the frequency range around 60 GHz is proposed which is designed for passive millimeter wave wireless sensor systems on-chip. Fabricated instandard bulk semiconductor technology, the radiation efficiency at 60 GHz is 20.9\% while thegain of the antenna is 0.2 dBi (gain in decibels with respect to an isotropic radiator). The return loss is higher than 13 dB, with a measured bandwidth including matching to 50 Ω of 2.5 GHz around 60 GHz making the antenna well suitable for low data rate sensors. The occupied chip size is 2.56 mm
²
. Furthermore, the influence of the ma- terial properties of the semiconductor, like the substrate height, substrate resistivity and permittivity on the antenna performance are discussed.