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In this paper different directional couplers have been designed and presented in two different process technologies.
Several branchline couplers have been designed and measured
and a broadside coupled-line coupler with more than 150 GHz
bandwidth is presented. The couplers are compared in area,
insertion loss, isolation, and susceptibility to process variation.
The passive structures have been simulated with SONNET
and very good agreement between simulation and measurement is observed.
I. I NTRODUCTION
806
Magnitude (dB)
TopMetal2
Passivation r =5
w
SiO2 r =4.1
10
15
Metal1
Si epi r =11.9 =5 S/m
11
20
21
S31
S41
MIM Capacitor
25
55
Fig. 2. Layer stack (left) and layout (right) of a reduced size branchline
coupler with MIM-capacitors.
57
59
61
Frequency (GHz)
63
65
67
Magnitude (dB)
10
20
30
S11
S
21
S31
S41
40
55
57
59
61
Frequency (GHz)
63
65
67
807
Magnitude (dB)
10
TopMetal2
h
TopMetal1
20
30
S21 meas
40
SiO2 r =4.1
S31 meas
S41 meas
S11 meas
50
90
100
110
120
Frequency (GHz)
130
140
SiO2 r =4.1
Metal5
s
Si epi r =11.9 =5 S/m
Si bulk r =11.9 =2 S/m
Fig. 9.
Layer stack (left) and layout (right) of broadside coupled-line
directional couplers. The lower metal layer is directly below the upper
conductor and is not seen in the layout. The slit in the ground plane increases
the coupling of the structure.
Broadband directional couplers can be designed as coupledlines, in most cases drawn by parallel lines with a small
gap. However, higher coupling can be achieved by broadside
coupling in silicon technology. The vertical distance between
two conductors in the upper metal layers is in most cases in Fig. 10. All S-Parameters can be measured in this way
smaller than the permitted horizontal distance. Moreover, the except the transmission coefficient of the lower line. A THRU
size w of both coupled-lines can be arbitrarily chosen. The deembedding structure has also been placed on the chip.
width of the lower conductor should be made smaller than The connections on all three structures should be identical
the upper one, as the distance to the substrate is lower. The (but attached to different ports). This is unfortunately not
coupler can be further optimized for special applications by possible, as two ports lie on lower metal layers. This requires
introducing more asymmetries, e.g. a displacement of the a via and a connection on the lower layer (with nonidentical
lower conductor. The structure has been placed three times characteristic impedance). The magnitude of the transmission
to enable 4-Port S-Parameters with a 2-Port measurement of this connection is nearly identical but the phase is slightly
setup. On each structure different ports are connected to different. Simulations however show a difference in magnitude
the pads and the remaining ports are terminated on-chip. and phase of only 0.028 dB and up to 0.35 from 20 to
200
GHz.
The
measurements,
which
are
shown
in
Fig. 11, have
The micrograph of the three connected structures is shown
808
Magnitude (dB)
10
TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF DIFFERENT COUPLERS
Coupler Type
Reduced Size
Reduced Size
Lumped Elements
Inverted Microstrip
Broadside
S21 sim
S31 sim
S41 sim
100
Frequency (GHz)
140
Iso
(dB)
39
21
23
27
13
IV. C ONCLUSION
R EFERENCES
S11 sim
60
S31
(dB)
-4.52
-4.8
-5.38
-4.8
-3.8
S41 meas
S11 meas
25
20
S21
(dB)
-4.39
-4.8
-5.23
-4.8
-3.8
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
S31 meas
20
size
(m2 )
180 x 205
125 x 115
180 x 205
225 x 250
95 x 160
S21 meas
15
f0
(GHz)
62
122
61
123
110
180
Fig. 11. S-Parameter measurements and simulated values of transmission parameters for the broadside coupled-line directional coupler. The S-Parameters
have been measured from 20 to 115 GHz and from 90 to 140 GHz with
two different frequency extenders and setups. The measurements are in good
agreement with the simulation results.
809