A complete measurement system for integrated antennas at millimeter wavelengths

An integrated high dynamic range approach is presented to accurately measure the radiation pattern, the scattering parameters, and the gain of integrated on-wafer antennas operating in the millimeter-wave frequency band. To avoid interconnection problems such as connector mounting, RF probes are used to connect to the antenna. This measurement system is specially designed to avoid scattering and parasitic radiation of RF probes in order to increase the dynamic range of the measurements. The mm-wave frequency band is split into two with each band having its own conceptual solution, and a special gain measurement technique is foreseen. The proposed system shows at least a 20 dB increment in the measurement dynamic range. Also, it can measure the nulls of a radiation pattern with much higher precision, down to ca. -30 dBi with respect to the maximum. This is much lower than most systems described in open literature. The setup is intended to work between 30-90 GHz.