Design of RF front-end system-in-package module based on organic substrate process

This paper proposes a novel highly integrated millimeter wave(MMW) transmission front-end system based on organic substrate technology. The system consists of substrate integrated waveguide(SIW) filter, power amplifier, mixer, lower noise amplifier and voltage controlled oscillator(VCO). We designed a 3-D system-in-package (SIP) module containing the above-mentioned devices. In the integrated structure, the upper and the lower substrates are interconnected by BGA, the electronic interconnection between monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) chips and external is through the wire-bonding. Full load thermal simulation result indicates that each chip junction temperature is below 64 °C. Experimental measurement shows that the insertion loss of the RF output signal transmission path is less than 0.34 dB and the return loss is more than 20 dB at 28 GHz. The insertion loss of third-order substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) filter is less than 3 dB, and bandwidth of 4% is obtained in 27 GHz-band. The measured transmit power is greater than 38 dBm, and the channel gain is more than 20 dB. The excellent overall performance of the novel integrated RF front-end system of SIW filter shows great potential to reach fully integrated passive front-end solution for a MMW wire-less communication system.