Millimeterwave silicon devices

Silicon as a base material for monolithic integrated millimeter wave circuits for frequencies up to and above 100 GHz is discussed, and the design and experimental results of different millimeterwave integrated circuits are presented. The circuits were fabricated either in monolithic silicon technology or in a hybrid silicon technology. However, the hybrid silicon circuits are also completely based upon silicon technology and may be considered as a step towards the complete monolithic integration. With hybrid planar silicon IMPATT oscillations above 70 GHz, a cw output power of 200 mW has been achieved. A monolithic 93 GHz receiver with a planar 36 element antenna on a 5.4 × 5.6 mm² silicon substrate has a sensitivity of 65 μV cm² μW^-1.