MMICs With Radial Probe Transitions to Waveguides

A document presents an update on the innovation reported in “Integrated Radial Probe Transition From MMIC to Waveguide” (npo-43957), NASA Tech Briefs Vol. 31, No. 5 (May 2007), page 38. To recapitulate: To enable operation or testing of a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC), it is necessary to mount the MMIC in a waveguide package that typically has cross-sectional waveguide dimensions of the order of a few hundred microns. A radial probe transition between an MMIC operating at 340 GHz and a waveguide had been designed (but not yet built and tested) to be fabricated as part of a monolithic unit that would include the MMIC.

The radial probe could readily be integrated with an MMIC amplifier because the design provided for fabrication of the transition on a substrate of the same material (InP) and thickness (50 μm) typical of substrates of MMICs that can operate above 300 GHz. As illustrated in the updated document by drawings, photographs, and plots of test data, the concept has now been realized by designing, fabricating, and testing several MMIC/radial-probe integrated-circuit chips and designing and fabricating a waveguide package to contain each chip.

This work was done by Lorene Samoska, Goutam Chattopadhyay, David Pukala, Mary Soria, King Man Fung, and Todd Gaier of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Vesna Radisic, Stella Makishi, William Deal, and Richard Lai of Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC). The work was sponsored under the DARPA SWIFT program and the contributors would like to acknowledge the support of Dr. Mark Rosker (DARPA) and Dr. H. Alfred Hung (Army Research Laboratory). NPO-45460

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This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).

MMICs With Radial Probe Transitions to Waveguides (reference NPO-45460) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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