Implementation of thermoelectric microwave power sensors in CMOS technology

Abstract

This paper presents two implementations of efficient thermoelectric microwave power sensors fabricated through commercial CMOS processes with additional maskless etching. Two types of thermocouple detectors were fabricated and tested. Both types measure true rms power of signals in the frequency range up to 20 GHz and input power range from -30 dBm to +10 dBm. The devices have linearity better than /spl plusmn/0.4% for output dc voltage vs. input microwave power over this 40 dB dynamic range. Measurements obtained using an automatic network analyzer show an acceptable input return loss of less than -20 dB over the entire frequency range.