Influence of the PCB Manufacturing Process on the Measurement Error of Planar Relative Permittivity Sensors Up To 100 GHz

Accurate and precise knowledge of the relative permittivity of printed circuit board (PCB) materials is essential for the reliable design of high-frequency circuits. For simplicity reasons, planar, resonant permittivity sensors, which are directly integrated on the unknown PCB material, are widely used. However, the sensors are affected by the nonidealities of the copper-clad laminate and PCB manufacturing process, e.g., the difference in roughness between the top and bottom sides of each metal layer. This paper analyzes the influence of these nonidealities on the extracted relative permittivity values of different sensor geometries in microstrip and substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology up to 100 GHz. Microstrip resonators are very sensitive against the investigated nonidealities. Additional roughness measurements and more detailed simulation models cannot noticeably reduce the uncertainties. SIW cavity sensors are more robust, and simple modeling approaches lead to low uncertainties smaller than 0.05 for the whole frequency range from 10 to 100 GHz.