《Millimeter-Wave Silicon Integrated Circuits》.pdf

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 61, NO. 7, JULY 2013 2685 Calibration-Kit Design for Millimeter-Wave Silicon Integrated Circuits Dylan F. Williams, Fellow, IEEE, Phillip Corson, Member, IEEE, Jahnavi Sharma, Student Member, IEEE, Harish Krishnaswamy, Member, IEEE, Wei Tai, Member, IEEE, Zacharias George, David Ricketts, Paul Watson, Eric Dacquay, Member, IEEE, and Sorin P. Voinigescu, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—We study and present design guidelines for thru-re- Vector-network-analyzer calibrations used to characterize flect-line vector-network-analyzer calibration kits used for char- silicon transistors are usually performed on commercial acterizing circuits and transistors fabricated on silicon integrated impedance-standard substrates fabricated on an alumina sub- circuits at millimeter-wave frequencies. We compare contact-pad designs and develop fixed-fill contacts that achieve both repeat- strate with a short-open-load-thru (SOLT), line-reflect-match able and low contact-pad capacitances. We develop a fill-free and (LRM) [1], line-reflect-reflect-match (LRRM) [2], or similar mesh-free transmission line structure for the calibration kit and calibration algorithm. This first tier calibration moves the compare it to similar transmission lines with meshed ground plane. calibration reference plane “to the probe tips.” The first-tier We also develop a gold plating process that greatly improves con- probe-tip calibration is then often followed by a second-tier tact repeatability, permitting the use of redundant multiline cali- brations. This in turn simplifies the development of