Improvement of Radiation Characteristics of a 300-GHz On-Chip Patch Antenna with Epoxy Mold Compound (EMC) Encapsulation

Abstract

Radiation characteristics of on-chip patch antennas are limited by the metallization and dielectric properties of the back-end of line (BEOL) silicon manufacturing processes. A 300-GHz on-chip patch antenna is designed using a radio frequency (RF) complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process. The radiation efficiency, peak gain, and impedance bandwidth improve upon encapsulation of the antenna with IC packaging epoxy mold compounds (EMCs). In addition, high-frequency conduction and dielectric losses are analyzed, and their effects on antenna radiation efficiency are quantified in this paper. The overall radiation efficiency is shown to improve by 25%, peak gain by $\sim 3 \ \boldsymbol{\text{dB}}$, and the-10-dB return loss bandwidth improves from 3 GHz to 18 GHz by encapsulating a 300-GHz on-chip patch antenna within commercially available EMCs.