Novel RF MEMS Devices for W-Band Beam-Steering Front-Ends

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents novel millimeter-wave microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) components for W-band reconfigurable beam-steering front-ends. The proposed MEMS components are novel monocrystalline-silicon dielectric-block phase shifters, and substrate-integrated three-dimensional (3D) micromachined helical antennas designed for the nominal frequency of 75 GHz.The novel monocrystalline-silicon dielectric-block phase shifters are comprised of multi-stages of a tailor-made monocrystalline-silicon block suspended on top of a 3D micromachined coplanar-waveguide transmission line. The relative phase-shift is obtained by vertically pulling the suspended monocrystalline-silicon block down with an electrostatic actuator, resulting in a phase difference between the up and downstate of the silicon block. The phase-shifter prototypes were successfully implemented on a high-resistivity silicon substrate using standard cleanroom fabrication processes. The RF and non-linearity measurements indicate that this novel phase-shifter design has an excellent figure of merit that offers the best RF performance reported to date in terms of loss/bit at the nominal frequency, and maximum return and insertion loss over the whole W-band, as compared to other state-of-the-art MEMS phase shifters. Moreover, this novel design offers high power handling capability and superior mechanical stability compared to the conventional MEMS phase-shifter designs, since no thin moving metallic membranes are employed in the MEMS structures. This feature allows MEMS phase-shifter technology to be utilized in high-power applications. Furthermore, the return loss of the dielectric-block phase shifter can be minimized by appropriately varying the individual distance between each phase-shifting stage.This thesis also investigates 3D micromachined substrate-integrated W-band helical antennas. In contrast to conventional on-chip antenna designs that only utilize the surface of the wafer, the novel helical radiator is fully embedded into the substrate, thereby utilizing the whole volume of the wafer and resulting in a compact high-gain antenna design. The performance of the antenna is substantially enhanced by properly etching the substrate, tailor making the antenna core, and by modifying size and geometry of the substrate-integrated ground plane. A linear line antenna array is composed of eight radiating elements and is demonstrated by simulations. Each antenna is connected to the input port through a multi-stage 3-dB power divider. The input and output of the single-stage 3-dB power divider is well matched to the 50-? impedance by four-section Chebyshev transformers. The simulation results indicate that the novel helical antenna arrays offer a narrow radiation beam with an excellent radiation gain that result in high-resolution scan angles on the azimuth plane. The proposed helical antenna structures can be fabricated by employing standard cleanroom micromachining processes.