HIGH-PERFORMANCE MICROSHIELD LINE COMPONENTS

Several millimeter-wave passive components have been fabricated using the microshield transmission line geometry, and their performance is p resented herein, Microshield is a quasi-planar, half-shielded design w hich uses a thin dielectric membrane (1.5 mu m) to support the conduct ing lines, This approach provides a nearly homogeneous, air-filled env ironment and thus allows extremely broad-band TEM operation, This pape r examines the conductor loss and effective dielectric constant of mic roshield lines and presents results on transitions to conventional cop lanar waveguide, right-angle bends, different stub configurations, and lowpass and bandpass filters, Experimental data is provided along wit h numerical results derived from an integral equation method, The micr oshield line is shown to be very suitable for high performance millime ter- and submillimeter-wave applications.