| This dissertation describes a novel microwave/millimeter-wave interconnect configuration for high-density, broadband mixed signal silicon MMICs. The proposed silicon/metal/polyimide (SIMPOL) structure is based on multilayer polyimide technology with self-packaging features, and is extremely effective in reducing the noise crosstalk as well as overall size of MMIC chips. Moreover, since the SIMPOL interconnect can be built on low-cost silicon substrate using standard CMOS processing techniques, it is very cost-effective, and applicable to current products without major cost addition. The measurement results of the developed SIMPOL structures demonstrate extremely low noise-crosstalk (<-40dB) in the entire frequency range (up to 50GHz), which is limited by the dynamic range of the measurement equipment, and excellent insertion loss (<-0.25dB/mm) up to 45GHz. In addition, the SIMPOL concept is applied successfully in the design of millimeter-wave circuits such as branch-line hybrids and broadside couplers at millimeter-wave frequencies. This novel interconnect structure should provide an attractive solution to low-cost, high-performance interconnects for high-speed, high-density mixed signal silicon MMICs which are finding increased applications in modern wireless communication systems as well as other advanced microwave and millimeter-wave systems. |
