2012-05-08

Substrate integrated waveguide integration with active components

Farzaneh Taringou, University of Victoria, Kanada

Substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology has been largely explored as a low-cost low-profile transmission line in passive microwave and millimeter circuits and devices. Yet,little research has been done to assess SIW performance in integration with active elements, e.g. Power Amplifier (PA) and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA). The long-term objective of this research is to develop techniques for the integration of SIW with active devices, such as Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) or Power Amplifiers (PAs), and surface-mount components on a single substrate layer whereby low-cost and low-profile active integrated SIW-based systems could replace bulky RWG configurations, thus yielding an ultra compact alternative for the receiver’s front end circuitry. Since a large number of SIW-based receiver cards will be integrated to form a two-dimensional, and eventually dual-polarized, phased array feed, it is important that the individual SIW circuits be mass-producible and tolerance-insensitive. This is especially true for current radio-astronomy applications, but it will also be beneficial to all other commercial technologies involving SIW circuitry in the millimetre-wave frequency regime.

Category: CE Seminar