On-wafer small-signal and large-signal measurements up to sub-THz frequencies

Abstract

Recent advances in MMIC technology have opened the possibilities for circuit operation in the THz range. There are numerous examples of BiCMOS and III-V compound device technologies with demonstrated performance beyond 600 GHz. Characterization of such MMIC are predominantly performed on-wafer in a planar environment. However, on-wafer characterization facilities do not fully keep pace with MMIC development in terms of frequency and power. The paper discusses issues involved in on-wafer calibration at mm-wave frequencies, which is the basis for accurate measurements and characterization of active and passive device. Subsequently, the paper discusses mm-wave interconnect characterization. Low-loss interconnects are important for mm-wave MMIC, especially in case of heterogeneous integration. Finally, a novel heterogeneous integration approach of bipolar technologies, using both BiCMOS and InP DHBT processes is presented. This approach heavily relies on low-loss interconnects and accurate device modelling. It will be shown that accurate large-signal models can be efficiently extracted from well-calibrated on-wafer multi-bias small-signal measurements, but verification is difficult due to calibration difficulties at mm-wave frequencies.