100-GHz Ultra-Broadband Distributed Amplifier in Chip-Size Package

Satoshi MASUDA  Kazuhiko KOBAYASHI  Hidehiko KIRA  Masayuki KITAJIMA  Kazukiyo JOSHIN  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Electronics   Vol.E87-C   No.7   pp.1197-1203
Publication Date: 2004/07/01
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Microwaves, Millimeter-Waves
Keyword: 
chip-size package (CSP),  distributed amplifier,  inverted microstrip line,  grounded coplanar waveguide,  flip-chip,  InP HEMT,  millimeter-wave,  lead-free solder,  

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Summary: 
We developed a new millimeter-wave plastic chip size package (CSP) to operate up to 100 GHz by using a thin-film substrate. It has a flip-chip distributed amplifier with inverted microstrip lines and the amplifier has a bandwidth of beyond 110 GHz. The transmission line on the substrate consists of grounded coplanar waveguides that yield low insertion loss and high isolation characteristics in coupled lines even in mold resin in comparison with conventional microstrip lines. The CSP amplifier achieved a gain of 7.8 dB, a 3-dB bandwidth of 97 GHz, and operated up to 100 GHz. To the best of our knowledge, this value is the highest operating frequency reported to date for a distributed amplifier sealed in a plastic CSP. We also investigated the transmission characteristics of lead-free solder bumps through experiments by assemblying CSPs on printed circuit boards and modeling them so that we could design the packages accurately.