C HAPTER 4

FUNCTIONAL CHIP PACKAGE

FOR GAIN ENHANCEMENT

4.1 INTRODUCTION 31
4.2 SUPERSTRATE LAYER 31
4.3 ANTENNA DESIGN 32
4.4 FRESNEL LENS 34

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 Chapter 4: Functional chip package for gain enhancement

4.1 INTRODUCTION
The optimization of a square patch-based AMC was discussed in Chapter
3. The AMC surface significantly improves the gain of the on-chip antenna. In this
chapter, the superstrate layer and Fresnel lens are examined to act as functional chip
packages, giving features of both gain enhancement and chip protection in order to
improve on-chip antenna radiation performance. In this final chapter, the completed
antenna design, along with the functional package, is given as a SoP solution.

4.2 SUPERSTRATE LAYER

A superstrate with a permittivity near to Si balances the EM coupling
into the superstrate and Si, resulting in end-fire radiation and low loss since fewer EM
waves are absorbed by the lossy Si substrate. Figure 4.1 depicts a stack-up of AoC
integrated with the AMC surface and superstrate layer on top. The superstrate material
is PREFERM FLX 1100, which has a permittivity of ε r = 11 and a loss tangent of tan
δ = 0.006 at 71 GHz.

Figure 4.1 Cross section view of AoC stackup with superstrate layer

The superstrate layer has a number of advantages. The superstrate has

the ability to provide chip protection and gain improvement since its thickness is λ d/4,
which is regarded as electrically thick. In addition, the superstrate is simple to produce
because no metal patterning or alignment is needed.

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 Chapter 4: Functional chip package for gain enhancement

4.3 ANTENNA DESIGN

The 180-nm CMOS process layer stack comprises a 10- μm-thick
dielectric embedded in 6 metal layers. The antenna is built on the top metal layer (M6)
because it offers enough metal thickness for the realization of radiating structures and
assists in the direction of radiation into free space.

The antenna is a quarter-wavelength monopole supplied via a coplanar

waveguide (CPW). The monopole antenna is smaller in size and has a better gain than
its dipole counterpart, making it an excellent option for on-chip integration.
Furthermore, it is simple to design and tune based on space and application
requirements. An AMC layer is put in the lower metal layers to improve gain. The
geometry of the CPW monopole antenna is shown in Figure 4.2, with the starting
dimensions dictated by the frequency of operation (72.5 GHz) and the substrate
material.

Figure 4.2 CPW- fed monopole antenna with dimensions

The sketching tools in the CST are used to create the 72.5 GHz
monopole antenna for a silicon substrate illustrated in Figure 4.2. The antenna's position
is entered using the Property Editor, and the dimensions are added as variables with set
values. To enable parametric optimization, it is advantageous to express every design
parameter as a variable. The material library for the material can be used to assign the
antenna's material qualities, just like it can for the substrate. According to the
requirements of the foundry, copper is chosen as the antenna material in this design.

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 Chapter 4: Functional chip package for gain enhancement

The necessary frequency range, quantity of frequency points, and mesh

parameters are then specified, and the antenna is simulated. Adaptive meshing is a
technique used by CST, where the mesh is built to match the electrical performance of
the device. The designer has control over how many passes the adaptive mesh process
will do; more passes result in more accurate results but increase simulation time. Plots
are produced to display the results after the simulation is complete.

In this work, only a 1.5×0.8 mm2 chip area over the whole chip area of
1.5×1.5 mm2 was used for the AoC design. So, the monopole antenna is a good choice
for the design of the on-chip antenna whose dimensions are given as follows and the
calculated and the actual dimensions for the antenna are calculated with the given
equations [24]:

c
Width of the antenna, w=2w 2+2 w3 + w4 =¿ . √❑ (4.1)
2fr

ε r +1 ε r −1
Effective dielectric constant, ε eff = + .¿ (4.2)
2 2

c
Effective length, Leff or l 1= (4.3)
2 f r √❑

Extension length equation, ∆ L=1=h ×0.412 ×

(w )
( ε eff +0.3 ) h + 0.264
(4.5)
−0.258 ) ( +0.8 )
w
( ε eff h

Length of the antenna, l 2=l 1−2 ∆ L (4.6)

Where, c is speed of the light; ε ris the permittivity of the substrate, f r is the resonant
frequency, and h is the thickness of the substrate.

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 Chapter 4: Functional chip package for gain enhancement

Table 4.1 Given and calculated parameters of monopole antenna

Parameters Calculated (in µm) Actual (in µm)

w1 40 20
w2 376 200
w3 10 10
w4 60 30
l1 480 425
l2 115 130

4.4 FRESNEL LENS

Gain can be increased by beam shaping with a Fresnel lens, which is
accomplished through diffraction rather than refraction in the traditional hyperboloid
lens [18]. The PREFERM 3D ABS filament (ε r = 10, tan δ = 0.02 at 72.5 GHz) in this
design serves as the low-loss dielectric material for the set of planar, grooved, circular
plates that make up the Fresnel lens, a phase-correcting lens. Fabrication is more simple
with a Fresnel lens since it is made up of many flat zone plates as opposed to a normal
shaped lens, which has a convoluted, curved surface. A Fresnel lens may also be made
smaller, lighter, and less absorbent by using a high permittivity dielectric material. The
main disadvantage of the Fresnel lens is that it is less effective at beam shaping than the
conventional hyperboloid lens because it only corrects the phase of EM waves from the
antenna at discrete locations, as opposed to the continuous corrections made by the
hyperboloid lens along the contoured surface.

By expanding the number of areas where phase correction takes place,

Fresnel lenses can perform better. To achieve this improvement, there are primarily two
approaches. More grooves are added to the dielectric material in the first way, however
this results in thicker layers and a more difficult production procedure [19]–[21].
Utilizing numerous concentric dielectric layers with various insulating constants [22]

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 Chapter 4: Functional chip package for gain enhancement

[25]. This method may produce a flat Fresnel lens devoid of grooves as well as enhance
lens performance. The difficulty of production is increased by the incorporation of
several dielectric materials. A Fresnel lens with grooves was constructed in this design
using a single dielectric material.

The EM waves from the AoC at the focal point travel an extra distance,
from the surface of the sphere to the edge of each zone plate, as seen in Figure 4.3.

λo
Δ= n . (4.7)
P

P is the total number of phases required to do phase correction. Two

half-wavelength or four quarter-wavelength phase-correcting lenses, for instance, are
what P is equivalent to. With a greater P, the beam focusing performance improves.

Figure 4.3 Geometry of the wave propagation in a Fresnel lens package[1]

The AoC is positioned at the focal point for a quarter-wavelength phase-

correcting lens. With a phase shift of less than 90 o, the emitted EM waves from the
AoC will travel via various regions of the zone plates. As illustrated in Figure 4.3, the
plane wave is then ideally produced on the right side of the lens. Thus, the phase-
correcting zone plates act as a lens to achieve the beam focusing function. The right
triangle formula [18] is used to determine the radius of each zone plate.

r n =√ ❑ (4.8)

In this design, P = 4 has been chosen because it strikes a good balance

between fabrication difficulty and Fresnel lens focusing performance. Due to the 2.7
mm focal length, the F/D ratio is comparatively low at 0.21 in [1]. Additionally, the

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 Chapter 4: Functional chip package for gain enhancement

Fresnel lens is far enough to be in the AoC's far-field region thanks to its 2.7 mm focal
length.

The lens was grooved into four-layer zone plates with depths of d, 2d,
and 3d for a quarter-wavelength lens. In [18], the depth d is provided.

λo
d= (4.9)
4.¿¿

Where ε r represents the lens material's permittivity. It should be noted that the
permittivity has an inverse relationship with lens thickness. To achieve a small design,
PREFERM 3D ABS filament, a high permittivity and low-loss material, was used. The
comparison for the dimensions in fresnel lens given in [1] and the calculated ones are
given in table 4.2.

Table 4.2 Given and calculated parameters of fresnel lens

Parameters Calculated (in mm) Optimized (in mm)

r1 2.52 5.46
r2 2.82 8.28
r3 5.01 10.78
r4 6.131 13.16
d 0.46 1.44

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