Millimeter-wave/THz passive components design using through silicon via (TSV) technology

Abstract

The 3-D integration using through silicon vias (TSVs) is expected to realize compact circuits and systems with high performance and multi-functionality. Based on the TSV technology, a hairpin bandpass filter and a microstrip patch antenna for millimeter-wave (mmW)/terahertz (THz) application are designed and presented in this paper. Additionally, a novel TSV-based solution for the integration of antennas with front-end circuits is proposed. The TSV-based hairpin bandpass filter has the insertion loss of 6.9 dB at 120 GHz with 20 GHz passband from 110 to 130 GHz, whereas the filter size is only 300 × 250 × 50 µm. The designed antenna is with 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 137 to 146 GHz, the boresight directivity and antenna gain is 3.49 dBi and −3.16 dBi, respectively, and the radiation efficiency is 21.6% which is around twice than that of many conventional on-chip antennas. The TSV-based integration solution is expected to reduce not only the total chip size but also the electromagnetic interference (EMI) effect, which are major concerns in the mmW/THz systems.