Research On Millimeter Wave T/R Front-end Using LTCC Technology

The millimeter wave transceiver by Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology can solve some problems effectively like congested band, large dimension etc., and can achieve the function as high performance and portability. This paper designs T/R systematic frame based on the structure of double-conversion super heterodyne, and analyses the link budget and system. The millimeter wave T/R module is realized based on LTCC technology including LNA, SPDT.Based on LTCC processing parameter, the LTCC DC bias network is designed in this paper, the isolation between millimeter wave channel and DC channel is realized by the DC bias network consisting of third order LPF network and sixth order elliptic LPF network and fan-shaped network respectively. The simulation results show that the insertion loss is relatively less closed to lossless transmitting and the isolation is more than 20dB which can meet the demand. The mesa beam PIN diodes are select to design the SPDT switch including series switch and shunt switch as well as series-shunt switch respectively by HFSS. The simulation results show that from 28 to 32 GHz, the inserting loss is less than 2dB, and the isolation among every open branch is more than 20dB, and the isolation between DC channel and millimeter wave channel is more than 15dB. The HMC263 chip is chose to design low noise balanced amplifier by HFSS. The simulation results show that the LNA achieves a gain of 21.5dB @ 30GHz, from 29 to 31GHz the gain is about 20dB while the gain flatness is less than 1.5dB.