A review of key development areas in low-cost packaging and integration of future E-band mm-wave transceivers

摘要

With an ever increasing number of broadbandapplications in sub-Saharan Africa, mm-wave point-to-pointnetworking has the potential to fill a niche in communicationsnetwork architectures. Widespread adoption of this technologywould benefit from conventional RF soft substrate integrationand packaging, as opposed to system-on-chip or thick filmprocesses. A review on the state-of-the-art in E-band softsubstrate systems reveals significant reliance on MMICs. Wepropose that hybrid integration of active devices with off-chippassives, as well as better integration of active components inSIW, will lead to better performing E-band systems in softsubstrates. Specific enabling techniques from the microwavedomain are identified.