Integrated Passive Device Research Articles

A Cost-Effective W-Band Antenna-in-Package Using IPD and PCB Technologies

This paper presents a cost-effective millimeter-wave (W-band) cavity-backed slot antenna-in-package (AiP) built by using commercially available integrated passive device (IPD), printed circuit board (PCB), and flip-chip assembly technologies. An IPD-PCB resonant cavity is formed by flipping an IPD chip on a PCB substrate with surrounding solder bumps to provide radiation through a square slot, which is patterned on one of the IPD metal layers. Moreover, a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity under the IPD-PCB cavity and a wideband grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) are built in the PCB substrate for the transition between a radio-frequency front-end (RFFE) and the IPD-PCB cavity. The fabricated AiP achieves a 3.75-dBi gain at 94.5 GHz (TE210 mode) and a 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 1.9 GHz with a 3.61 mm2 IPD chip area.

An Unequal Wilkinson Power Divider Based on Integrated Passive Device Technology and Parametric Model

A new on-chip unequal Wilkinson power divider (WPD), developed on a silicon-based integrated passive device (IPD) process and parametric model, is proposed. The central operating frequency is at 4.8 GHz for sub-6G applications. The design process achieves a balance between circuit simulation efficiency and full-wave simulation accuracy based on the parametric model. The size of a fabricated sample for the proposed unequal WPD is <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.6\times2.1$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> . A good agreement between the simulated and measured results is achieved.

An Ultrawideband GaAs MMIC Microstrip Directional Coupler With High Directivity and Very Flat Coupling

By introducing an adaptive lumped bridged-T amplitude equalizer into the microstrip directional coupler, this article realizes a 2.2 mm <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times1.3$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm ultrawideband GaAs monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) directional coupler with high directivity and very flat coupling by using the GaAs integrated passive device (IPD) process. The experimental results show that the proposed directional coupler exhibits more comprehensive radio frequency (RF) performance than the reported directional couplers due to the use of an adaptive bridged-T amplitude equalizer. In the ultrawide working frequency range from 2 to 20 GHz, the insertion loss of the coupler is less than 1.5 dB, the return loss is better than −20 dB, the coupling flatness is within ±0.3 dB, the isolation is higher than 40 dB, and the directivity is more than 20 dB, which are basically consistent with theoretical predictions. The microstrip directional coupler using the adaptive bridged-T amplitude equalizer shows great potential in the high-performance broadband communication system.

Compact wideband Wilkinson power divider on gallium arsenide integrated passive device technology

In this article, a novel topology of wideband on-chip Wilkinson power divider (WPD) with good insertion loss (IL) performance is proposed and demonstrated on gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based integrated passive device (IPD) technology. The proposed WPD is further analyzed by the even and odd method. To verify the advantage of the proposed WPD against the conventional one, two examples are numerically investigated, showing that the proposed one achieves better performance in terms of IL and isolation. In addition, the proposed design achieves a miniature area and small amplitude and phase imbalance (AI) performance. The fractional bandwidth (FBW) of the proposed WPD is 100% (6–18 GHz), where the magnitude imbalance is less than 0.08 dB and phase imbalance is better than 0.4°. Furthermore, the minimum IL is better than 0.96 dB and return loss is better than 13.7 dB within the core passband. Meanwhile, the isolation of the WPD is better than 17.6 dB. Finally, to further demonstrate our design conception, the proposed WPD has been fabricated on GaAs IPD technology with size of 1.5 × 0.9 mm2, and measured by on-wafer probing. All the simulated and measured results of the proposed WPD are matched reasonably well with each other, thus firmly validating the claimed superior performance of the proposed WPD in the wide operating bandwidth, low IL and high isolation.

On‐chip miniaturized bandpass filter using gallium arsenide‐based integrated passive device technology

AbstractThe paper proposes a miniaturized bandpass filter (BPF) using gallium arsenide (GaAs)‐based integrated passive device (IPD) technology. The proposed filter is evolved from traditional third order BPF, and it achieves a wide operation frequency band covering three 5G sub‐bands including 3.4–3.5 GHz, 3.5–3.6 GHz, and 4.8–4.9 GHz. The performance of out‐of‐band rejection is improved by introducing three transmission zeros (TZs). As known, adding cross coupling and LC resonator are the general methods to improve out‐of‐band rejection. Therefore, the first TZ at 5.85 GHz is obtained at the upper sideband by adding a capacitive coupling between the source port and resonator 2, which is a cross‐coupling mode. According to the coupling matrix, the value of the added capacitance can be calculated and optimized. Another TZ at 2.36 GHz is occurred at the left side of passband as a serial LC resonator is connected in parallel with filter near the input port. The third TZ at 7.74 GHz is generated at the upper sideband due to a serial LC resonator connected in parallel with the load terminal of the filter. The values of components in LC resonators can be calculated, too. Finally, the whole filter is optimized in full‐wave electromagnetic simulation software HFSS. The proposed filter is fabricated and measured, and the results show that it has a wide −10 dB frequency band from 3.3 GHz to 4.9 GHz and a maximum insertion loss of 2.5 dB. In addition, it has a good frequency selectivity with a rectangular coefficient of 1.67 and out‐of‐band suppression higher than 20 dB in a wide stopband. The filter adopts compact placement and has a relative miniaturized electrical size of 0.298 , which is about 55% smaller than recently reported one.

Ultra‐miniaturized filtering power divider chip on integrated passive device technology using complex isolation network

In this letter, an ultra-miniaturized filtering power divider (FPD) chip based on integrated passive device (IPD) technology using a complex isolation network is proposed. Three lumped L represents inductor, C represents capacitor (LC) tanks and two electromagnetic hybrid coupling units are used to realize the third-order quasi-elliptical filtering response with high-frequency selectivity and wide stopband, which are designed and realized by using the IPD process to achieve ultra-miniaturized size. In addition, the complex impedance is utilized to form the isolation network, so good in-band isolation can be easily achieved. Moreover, the working principle and design method of this proposed FPD is well illustrated, a prototype with 3-dB fractional bandwidth of 19.3% at 2.6 GHz (f0) is in final designed and fabricated. The isolation is higher than 16 dB within the passband, and upper-stopband attenuation higher than 20 dB is extended to 40 GHz (15.4f0). It occupies only 2.76 mm × 2.0 mm, that 0.023λ0 × 0.017λ0, where λ0 is the free-space wavelength at f0.

Bandpass Filter With Ultra-Wide Upper Stopband on GaAs IPD Technology

In this brief, a novel bandpass filter (BPF) with ultra-wide upper stopband performance is proposed and implemented on gallium arsenide (GaAs) integrated passive device (IPD) technology. Firstly, the proposed BPF is designed by introducing a <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\boldsymbol{\pi }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -section to achieve an ultra-wide upper stopband. Following that, the working principle of achieving this ultra-wideband upper stopband performance is further investigated. Finally, to demonstrate the claimed performances, this BPF with a size of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.63 {\mathrm {\times }}0.62$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> has been fabricated on GaAs IPD technology and measured by on-wafer probing. The measured BPF with a 3-dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 95.3% (1.7-4.8 GHz), exhibits the expected performances, especially the superior upper stopband suppression level better than 20 dB until 110 GHz (34.6 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${f} _{0}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ). The simulated and measured results of the BPF are in reasonably good agreement, thus firmly validating the claimed superior performances of the BPF in terms of good frequency selectivity and ultra-wide upper stopband.

Compact and High-Order On-Chip Wideband Bandpass Filters on Multimode Resonator in Integrated Passive Device Technology

Compact and High-Order On-Chip Wideband Bandpass Filters on Multimode Resonator in Integrated Passive Device Technology

Design and Micro-Nano Fabrication of a GaAs-Based On-Chip Miniaturized Bandpass Filter with Intertwined Inductors and Circinate Capacitor Using Integrated Passive Device Technology.

In this study, we propose a miniaturized bandpass filter (BPF) developed by combining an approximate circular (36-gon) winding inductor, a circinate capacitor, and five air-bridge structures fabricated on a gallium arsenide (GaAs) substrate using an integrated passive device (IPD) technology. We introduced air-bridge structures into the outer metal wire to improve the capacitance per unit volume while utilizing a miniaturized chip with dimensions 1538 μm × 800 μm (0.029 λ0 × 0.015 λ0) for the BPF. The pattern was designed and optimized by simulating different dimensional parameters, and the group delay and current density are presented. The equivalent circuit was modeled to analysis various parasitic effect. Additionally, we described the GaAs-based micro-nano scale fabrication process to elucidate the proposed IPD technology and the physical structure of the BPF. Measurements were conducted with a center frequency of 1.53 GHz (insertion loss of 0.53 dB) and a 3-dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 70.59%. The transmission zero was located at 4.16 GHz with restraint of 35.86 dB. Owing to the benefits from its miniaturized chip size and high performance, the proposed GaAs-based IPD BPF was verified as an excellent device for various S-band applications, such as satellite communication, keyless vehicle locks, wireless headphones, and radar.

Compact wideband Wilkinson power divider on GaAs integrated passive device technology

In this article, a novel topology of wideband on-chip Wilkinson power divider (WPD) with good insertion loss (IL) performance is proposed and demonstrated on gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based integrated passive device (IPD) technology. The proposed WPD is further analyzed by the even and odd method. To verify the advantage of the proposed WPD against the conventional one, two examples are numerically investigated, showing that the proposed one achieves better performance in terms of IL and isolation. In addition, the proposed design achieves a miniature area and small amplitude and phase imbalance (AI) performance. The fractional bandwidth (FBW) of the proposed WPD is 100% (6-18 GHz), where the magnitude imbalance is less than 0.08 dB and phase imbalance is better than 0.4°. Furthermore, the minimum IL is better than 0.96 dB and return loss is better than 13.7 dB within the core passband. Meanwhile, the isolation of the WPD is better than 17.6 dB. Finally, to further demonstrate our design conception, the proposed WPD has been fabricated on GaAs IPD technology with size of 1.5 × 0.9 mm2, and measured by on-wafer probing. All the simulated and measured results of the proposed WPD are matched reasonably well with each other, thus firmly validating the claimed superior performance of the proposed WPD in the wide operating bandwidth, low IL, and high isolation.

IPD bandpass filter chip based on the filter prototype realized by new compact resonators

In this paper, a resonator based on a coupled inductor and a capacitor is proposed to obtain a pole and a zero concurrently. This resonator has a compact layout with a size of only an inductor. This paper describes the idea of constructing filter circuit completely based on this type of resonator and presents a method to realize the equivalence between networks of the resonators and classical filter prototypes. Bandpass filters based on the resonators can be realized to verify the feasibility of the method. A filter chip with a size of 2.01 × 1.21 mm2 is realized by the integrated passive device (IPD) technology. The operation frequency with |S11| < −10 dB and |S22| < −10 dB covers 4.93–6.15 GHz, two out-of-band poles are 0.87 GHz and 0.45 GHz away from the passband edges respectively, the measured insertion loss is 2.04 dB.

Compact, Reflectionless Band-Pass Filter: Based on GaAs IPD Process for Highly Reliable Communication

For highly reliable and compact communication of front-end modules, a miniaturized reflectionless band-pass filter, based on the GaAs integrated passive device (IPD) process, is proposed in this work. The stop-band signal absorption rate of the filter can reach more than 90% and greatly reduce the influence of electromagnetic interference for sensitive devices. First, a circuit topology of reflectionless filter is proposed. Then, the miniaturized reflectionless band-pass filter is designed and fabricated based on GaAs IPD process with a compact size of only 0.85 mm × 1.33 mm × 0.09 mm (0.011λ × 0.018λ × 0.001λ). The filter operates at frequency ranging from 3.3 GHz to 4.5 GHz for 5G communication, the insertion loss (S21) is less than 3 dB, the return loss in the passband (S11) is over 15 dB, the stopband return loss (S11) is over 10 dB, and the out-of-band suppression (S21) reached 19 dB. All the measured results are in good agreement with the simulated results. It shows great potential in the process of designing highly reliable and compact monolithic integrated wireless modules and wearable electronics.

Design of Low Pass Filter using Passive Inductor

This paper discusses the passive inductor-based low pass filter (LPF) up to 1.144 GHz bandwidth range with the use of integrated passive device (IPD) technology. In this circuit, three MIM capacitors and three inductors are added parallel to create transmission zeros at a frequency of about 2.2 GHz and 3.6 GHz. The filter has been designed by this method with less structure complexity, a small insertion loss, a small chip area, increase bandwidth, and high out-of-band rejection. After the fabrication of the low pass filter circuit, the insertion loss of 0.7 dB, center frequency 600 MHz, and harmonic rejections of 62 dB with the chip area of 1125.21 μm×471.25 μm including pads.

Creating distinctive connections between multifunctional microwave circuits and mobile-terminal radio-frequency integrated chips using integrated passive device technology

In this review, the advanced microwave devices based on the integrated passive device (IPD) technology are expounded and discussed in detail, involving the performance breakthroughs and circuit innovations. Then, the development trend of IPD-based multifunctional microwave circuits is predicted further by analyzing the current research hot spots. This paper discusses a distinctive research area for microwave circuits and mobile-terminal radio-frequency integrated chips.

Target properties optimization on capacitive-type humidity sensor: Ingredients hybrid and integrated passive devices fabrication

Optimized hygroscopic film preparation and high-precision manufacturing guarantee the humidity sensor expected properties on sensitivity, hysteresis, response/recovery speed, reliability, etc. This paper demonstrated a comprehensive prioritization scheme on the premise of industrial production. Raw materials mixtures such as pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA)/p-phenylenediamine (p-PDA), and PMDA/oxydianiline (ODA) were investigated to solve the issue of film surface collapse. Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is adopted as an additive to enhance the film reliability (maximum of 0.15 % measurement error rate in 120 h continuous testing) as well as assistance in the film coating process. Rutile TiO2 with the average particle size of 0.33 μm was employed as doping elements to reduce the hysteresis to 0.95 % relative humidity (RH), increase the sensitivity to 0.94 pF/% RH, and limit the response/recovery time within 40 s. The film-growth quality and the consistency of production performance were assured by the integrated-passive-device (IPD) fabrication process.

A W-Band 1-dB Insertion Loss Wilkinson Power Divider Using Silicon-Based Integrated Passive Device

This work presents an on-chip Wilkinson power divider using silicon-based integrated passive device (IPD) technology that operates from 70 to 110 GHz, thereby covering the entire W-band (75-110 GHz). Based on a simple impedance transformation different from the conventional Wilkinson power divider topology, the proposed silicon IPD power divider with a core size of 0.417 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> can demonstrate power loss of less than 1.1 dB along with input-output return loss better than 14 dB throughout the entire band.

Compact wideband Wilkinson power divider on gallium arsenide‐based integrated passive device technology

In this article, a novel topology of wideband on-chip Wilkinson power divider (WPD) with good insertion loss (IL) performance is proposed and demonstrated on gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based integrated passive device (IPD) technology. The proposed WPD is further analyzed by the even and odd method. To verify the advantage of the proposed WPD against the conventional one, two examples are numerically investigated, showing that the proposed one achieves better performance in terms of IL and isolation. In addition, the proposed design achieves a miniature area and small amplitude and phase imbalance (AI) performance. The fractional bandwidth (FBW) of the proposed WPD is 100% (6-18 GHz), where the magnitude imbalance is less than 0.08 dB and phase imbalance is better than 0.4°. Furthermore, the minimum IL is better than 0.96 dB and return loss is better than 13.7 dB within the core passband. Meanwhile, the isolation of the WPD is better than 17.6 dB. Finally, to further demonstrate our design conception, the proposed WPD has been fabricated on GaAs IPD technology with size of 1.5 × 0.9 mm2, and measured by on-wafer probing. All the simulated and measured results of the proposed WPD are matched reasonably well with each other, thus firmly validating the claimed superior performance of the proposed WPD in the wide operating bandwidth, low IL, and high isolation.

An Ultrawide Ku- To W-Band Array Antenna Package Using Flip-Chipped Silicon Integrated Passive Device With Multilayer PCB Technology

A new antenna-in-package (AiP) solution for a tightly connected bowtie array antenna using a silicon-based integrated passive device (IPD) on a multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) is developed. The proposed IPD antenna is flip-chipped on the PCB through solder balls and gold studs, whereas a vertical coax-via-based feeding structure is used to provide differential excitation. The proposed 5 × 5 array AiP shows a bandwidth of 18.58-100 GHz with differential VSWR ≤ 3.5 when only exciting the central antenna element. The simulations are validated through the fabrication and measurement of prototypes, demonstrating a reasonable agreement in differential VSWR and radiation patterns.

IPDs Help to Simplify IoT Applications

Chipset specific Integrated Passive Devices (IPDs) are intended to simplify the development of next gen wireless IoT applications, as New Electronics discovers

Millimeter-Wave Dual-Band Bandpass Filter With Large Bandwidth Ratio Using GaAs-Based Integrated Passive Device Technology

In this letter, a millimeter-wave (mm-wave) dual-band bandpass filter is proposed with large bandwidth ratio by using gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based integrated passive device (IPD) technology. To realize small chip size, one dual-mode on-chip resonator is designed by using quasi-lumped capacitors and microstrip lines. In addition, multiple transmission zeroes are generated by further introducing both the electric and magnetic couplings between adjacent resonators. To realize large bandwidth ratio of two passbands, the external quality factors are investigated at both passband, and can be independently controlled. For demonstration, a 28-/50-GHz dual-band bandpass filter is designed, fabricated, and measured. The fractional bandwidth ratio is 7.8, which is much larger than the reported on-chip filters. Meanwhile, very low insertion loss of 0.58-dB is realized for the lower passband at 28 GHz, indicating the proposed dual-band bandpass filter a promising application in mm-wave wireless systems.