Institude of Integrated Mircosystems Funded Project
Project Title:
Silicon-based Reconfigurable Antennas Integrated with Micromachined Electromagnetic
Bandgap Structures and RF MEMS Switches (I2MS01/02.EG05)
Principal Investigator:
Prof Kevin J. Chen,
Department of Electrical Engineering, HKUST
Project Duration:
Jul 1, 2002 to Jun 30, 2004
Project Summary:
This project is to develop three key components for wireless communication systems:
patch antenna on silicon, electromagnetic bandgap (EMBG) structure and RF MEMS switches.
Two different types of Coplanar Waveguide (CPW)-fed slot antennas have been design and
fabricated on silicon substrates.
The EMBG structure, aiming at reducing the surface waves generated by the patch antenna,
has been realized on silicon substrates through several key technologies:
(1) through-wafer via formation by ICP Deep RIE, (2) conformal Cu electroplating,
(3) double sided alignment, and (4) deposition of silicon oxide or
nitride thin film for Metal-Insulator-Metal capacitors.
The research of capacitive RF MEMS switch was carried out
in collaboration with the MEMS group in the Institute of Microelectronics,
Beijing University. The RF MEMS switch has one unique design: the dielectric layer
is not directly deposited on the transmission lines to eliminate any dielectric loss
when the transmission line is in the ˇ§onˇ¨ state. In addition,
a novel CMOS-compatible micromachined Edge-suspended inductors and coplanar waveguides
(CPWs) were invented.
Research Output:
- Publication
- J.W. Zhang, W.C. Hon, L. L. W. Leung, and K. J. Chen, ˇ§CMOS-Compatible
Micromachining Techniques for Fabricating High-Performance Edge-suspended
RF/Microwave Passive Components on Silicon Substrates,ˇ¨ Journal Of
Micromechanics and Microengineering, Vol.15, No. 2, pp. 328-335, Feb. 2005/3/27
- L. L. W. Leung, W. C. Hon, and K. J. Chen, ˇ§ Low-loss
Coplanar Waveguides Interconnects on Low- resistivity Silicon Substrate,ˇ¨
IEEE Trans. On Components and Packaging Technologies., vol. 27, No. 3, pp.
507-512, Sep. 2004.
- K.J, Chen, W.C. Hon, J. W. Zhang, and L. L. W. Leung, ˇ§CMOS-Compatible
Micromachined Edge-suspended Inductors with High Q-factors and Self-resonance
Frequencies,ˇ¨ IEEE Electron Device Letters., vol.25, No. 6, pp. 363-365,
June, 2004.
- L.L.W Leung, K.J. Chen, X. Huo, and P.C.H. Chan,ˇ¨ Low-loss
Microwave Filter on CMOS-grade Standard Silicon Substrate with a Low-k BCB
Dielectric,ˇ¨ Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol.40, No.
1, pp. 9-11, Jan. 2004.
- Student trained
- Lydia Leung, completed the Ph.D thesis in January 2005, thesis title
ˇ§Low-loss On-chip Interconnects for Silicon Integrated Radio-frequency and Microwave Systemsˇ¨
- Wai Cheong Hon, completed the M. Phil thesis in Aug. 2004,
thesis title ˇ§SMOS-Compatible High-Performance Micromachined Edge-Suspended Inductorsˇ¨
- Jinwen Zhang, research assistant from
Microelectronics Institute of Beijing University MEMS switch
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