60-GHz full MEMS antenna platform mechanically driven by magnetic actuator

This paper presents a single antenna platform steered by an external magnetic field where a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) and capacitors are vertically integrated. Unique process skills are successfully optimized to implement a newly proposed microelectromechanical systems antenna. A silicon grid is patterned on the processing wafer to prevent the destruction of the antenna by benzocyclobutene delamination due to the stress applied to the wafers. Moreover, the stress barrier patterns are designed to increase the fabrication yield by protecting the structure failure during the back-side silicon release step. All the electrical elements, such as the MMIC, capacitors, patch antenna, and signal lines, are integrated on a single silicon chip; thus, the fabricated antenna system has smaller size and higher productivity than the conventional ones. The vertically integrated MMIC particularly results in a uniform gain at entire steering angles and reduced signal losses. The fabricated antenna is driven by a magnetic field externally applied with copper coils, and the antenna beam patterns are obtained with various tilting angles. The scanning angles are -14°, 0 °, and +18° in the H-plane and -18°, -12°, 0° , +12°, and +16° in the E-plane, and the center frequency of the fabricated antenna is 59.8 GHz which is close to the designed resonance frequency of 60 GHz.