Compact millimeter-wave active integrated antenna based on a highly compatible antenna-in-package solution

Abstract In this work, a compact active integrated antenna based on a highly compatible antenna-in-package (AiP) solution is proposed. It consists of two sections, namely, a cover plate integrated with an antenna and a package backplane that carries a GaN power amplifier (PA) die. The proposed AiP solution not only provides efficient interconnection between the antenna and the GaN PA die while providing physical shielding, but also provides impedance compensation for the die to improve the matching performance. Besides, a plated through hole array is designed inside the package backplane to significantly improve heat dissipation performance. The proposed AiP solution is compatible with radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) dies with different pin arrangements. Two prototypes are fabricated and measured for validation. The first prototype is the active integrated antenna based on the GaN PA, which shows an impedance bandwidth of 25.7–28.7 GHz, a peak gain of 31 dBi, and a dimension of 8 mm × 8 mm × 1.7 mm. Another prototype is based on a GaN front-end module (FEM) die integrating the PA and low noise amplifier, which demonstrates better EVM and ACPR than the conventional design with separate antenna and FEM.