60-GHz broadband CMOS on-chip antenna with an artificial magnetic conductor

Abstract

An on-chip antenna operating at 60 GHz with improved gain performance is proposed. The proposed antenna is fabricated using a 0.18um CMOS process. An artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) plane is located between the on-chip antenna and the grounded lossy CMOS substrate, in order to enable the reflected wave from the ground to be in-phase with the incident wave. As a result, the loss brought by the lossy substrate can be reduced. A patch antenna, together with two parasitic elements, is implemented in our design and a broad bandwidth from 50 GHz - 70 GHz is achieved. The proposed antenna can also achieve a gain performance better than -2.2 dBi within its bandwidth, which is higher than conventional on-chip antennas with gain of -10 dBi to -8 dBi. Good agreement is also achieved between simulation and measurement.