A compact V-band 3-D MMIC single-chip down-converter using photosensitive BCB dielectric film

A high-density monolithic-microwave integrated-circuit (MMIC) V-band down-c onverter, which employs the masterslice three-dimensional (3-D) MMIC techno logy and photosensitive benzocyclobutene (BCB) dielectric him, is presented in this paper, The 3-D MMIC process, which uses photosensitive BCB dielect ric him, reduces the turn-around time by 66% compared to the polyimide-base d fabrication process, The BCB based fabrication process offers flexible me tal configurations and high yields. The down-converter is structured on an 8 x 2 master array in a 1.84 mm x 0.87 mm chip. A newly developed down-conv erter MMIC with a heterostructure MESFET with f(max) of 130 GHz consists of a two-stage radio-frequency amplifier and an image rejection mixer with an intermodulatioin frequency amplifier. This MMIC demonstrates a gain of 19. 3 dB and an image rejection ratio of above 18 dB in the frequency range of 56.5-59.5 Gift; its associated gain density is five times higher than that of conventional MMIC's. This paper first clarifies the design criteria for 3-D MMIC: packaging using the flip-chip bonding technique. The BCB-based 3- D MMIC technology with the flip-chip bonding will realize much cheaper mill imeterwave wireless equipment.