A Compact 30 GHZ Low Loss Balanced Hybrid Coupler

Fabricated Using Micromachined Integrated Coax

Richard T. Chen
1
(rchen@microfabrica.com), Elliott R. Brown
2
, Rahul S. Singh
3
1
Microfabrica Inc., Burbank, CA, 91506, USA
2
University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
3
University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
Abstract This paper presents a 4-port 30-GHz
quadrature hybrid coupler fabricated using micromachined
integrated coax. The best electrical performance was
measured at 31.6 GHz, where the amplitude and phase
difference between the through and coupled ports are within
0.23 dB and 1.5, respectively, of the nominal 3 dB, 90
o
design
specification. The excess losses for the through and coupled
port at 31.6 GHz are 0.31 dB and 0.54 dB. The overall
footprint of the component is /10 by /5 at 30 GHz (1.0 x 1.7
mm), making this hybrid extremely small compared to
alternative waveguide or coaxial designs. We believe this is the
smallest coaxial hybrid coupler ever fabricated for 30-GHz.
Index Terms Coax, coupler, EFAB, hybrid, MEMS,
micromachining.
I. INTRODUCTION
Recent years have seen increased interest in the K and Ka
frequency bands due to continued growth of satellite
communications, particularly the U.S. Air Force Wideband
Gapfiller Satellite (WGS) program. The WGS is a high-
capacity communication system that will service all
branches of the military. The frequency bands around 30
GHz and 20 GHz service the uplink and downlink
communication, respectively. Hybrid couplers are
important because of their widespread use at these
frequencies in transmitters and receivers alike, and their
utility in engineering low-cost analog beamformers such as
the Butler matrix and variants thereof.
In this paper we present a compact 30 GHz hybrid
coupler based on micromachined integrated coax.
Micromachined integrated coax is a low-loss, transverse
electromagnetic, all-metal, completely shielded transmission
line. It consists of a solid center conductor suspended in air
by posts or stubs and entirely enclosed by a metal shielding.
We have previously demonstrated a low loss Ka-band filter
at 30 GHz using micromachined integrated coax [1, 2].
Micromachined integrated coax was also used to make a
low loss 60 GHz branch line coupler [3]. The high isolation
inherent to solid-metal coax allows neighboring lines to
have minimal spacing between them. Therefore, the branch
lines for the 30 GHz coupler we are presenting were bent in
a serpentine fashion to reduce the overall footprint of the
coupler to /10 by /5 (1.0 x 1.7 mm) at 30 GHz, not
including the pads used for probing.
Micromachined integrated coax is fabricated using the
EFAB

process, a selective electrochemical metal

deposition process [4]. EFAB

consists of a repetition of
three processing steps: patterning a sacrificial metal, blanket
depositing a structural metal and planarizing both metals.
These steps can be repeated as many times as necessary to
achieve the required height and number of layers. Unlike
many standard micromachining processes that are optimized
for a specific component, the versatility of the EFAB

process allows different RF elements such as, inductors,

variable capacitors and antennas, to be fabricated
simultaneously with the integrated coax transmission lines.
The components can be bonded directly on top of integrated
circuits, ceramics or other substrates, combining passive and
active elements together. The hybrid coupler in the present
work was built on an alumina substrate for demonstration
purposes.
II. DESIGN
A four-port 3 dB quadrature hybrid coupler was
designed for the band 28-32 GHz. SoldWorks
TM
3D CAD
software was used to generate a model of the device, which
was directly used to fabricate the device. Fig. 1 shows a
schematic of the integrated coax structure that forms the
coupler with each of the four ports labeled. The flexibility
of the EFAB

process allows for any number of layers with

arbitrary thicknesses to be used. To integrate the coupler
with other components, such as RF switches, inductors,
phase shifters and delay lines, a fabrication process of 19
layers with alternating thicknesses of 10 m and 4 m was
chosen. Only 17 layers were used for the coupler resulting
in a total height of 122 m. The dimensions of each branch
of the micromachined integrated coax, with their respective
impedance values, are given in Table 1. The height and
T4A.1
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width of the inside surface of the shielding (outer) conductor
was maintained at 94 m, while the dimensions of the inner
conductor were varied, providing different characteristic
impedance values. Each port was terminated with a set of
ground-signal-ground contact pads with a pitch of 100 m
to facilitate coplanar-probe measurements. The completely
shielded coax transmission lines allowed small turn radii
and close line spacing, which reduced the overall footprint
of the coupler to 1mm x 1.7mm. An unfolded 30 GHz
hybrid coupler measures 2.5mm x 2.5mm and has more than
3.5x the footprint of the folded coupler. Each branch of the
coupler made two 180-degree bends with turn radii of 87m
and had a minimum line spacing of 174m.


Fig. 1. (a) Cross-section of micromachined integrated coax. (b)
Schematic of the hybrid coupler indicating ports 1-4 and lines L1
and L2.
H/W of inner
conductor
Length inner
conductor
Characteristic
Impedance
L1 38 m 2.5 mm 39.0
L2 46 m 2.5 mm 50.0
Table 1. Dimensions of the micromachined integrated coax.
III. FABRICATION
The hybrid coupler was fabricated using the EFAB

process developed at Microfabrica Inc. Each layer is

deposited using a three step repetitive process. First, a
copper sacrificial layer is patterned. Then, a nickel
structural layer is blanket deposited over the copper.
Finally, the 2 metals are planarized and provide the base for
the subsequent layer. These three steps are repeated until
the desired number of layers and total height is reached.
There is no theoretical limitation to the number of layers
that can be processed. Devices with >40 layers are often
fabricated. After all of the layers are fabricated, the copper
is sacrificially etched, leaving a free standing nickel
structure. A diagram of the process flow is shown in Fig. 2.
To remove the sacrificial copper within the coax
transmission lines, etch holes were placed periodically on
the sides of the coax walls. The etch holes measured 40 m
wide, 94 m tall and repeated every 140 m. The center
conductor is suspended within the air dielectric by the four
contact pads and four posts placed at the center of the
branch line. The posts connect the center line to the
substrate to provide mechanical support. A hole is patterned
in the bottom of the outer ground shielding, around the post,
to prevent electrical shorting between the center conductor
and outer shielding. Fig. 3 shows a drawing of the contact
pad and support post. A scanning electron micrograph and
3D CAD drawing of the folded and unfolded hybrid coupler
are shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 2. The EFAB

process flow used to fabricate the hybrid

coupler.
(a)
(b)
Fig 3. (a) Drawing of the ground-signal-ground contact pad that
supports the center conductor. (b) Cross-section of the branch line
exposing the isolated post that also supports the center conductor.
Port 1
Port 2
Port 3
Port 4
L1
L1 L2
L2
W
H
94m
94m
228
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4. (a) 3D CAD drawing of a folded and unfolded hybrid
coupler. (b) Scanning electron micrograph of a folded hybrid
coupler fabricated within an unfolded hybrid coupler.
IV. SIMULATION
The 3D CAD drawing of the hybrid coupler was imported
into HFSS
TM
(Ansoft Corporation) to simulate its electrical
performance. The predicted coupling at 31.6 GHz for the
through port was -3.8 dB and -3.9 dB for the coupled port.
The simulation for the phase difference between the two
output ports was 86.3 degrees. The support posts at the
center of the branch lines were not incorporated in the
simulations. The simulation plots are shown in Fig. 5.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The S-parameters of the hybrid coupler were measured
between 0.05 and 34 GHz using an Agilent 8722ES vector
network analyzer. Four ground-signal-ground coplanar
tungsten probes with 100-m pitch were used to couple to
the component [5]. Each probe had a standard 2.9-mm
coaxial output, two of which were terminated with 50
while measurements were being taken on the other two
ports. For example, 50 terminations were used on port 2
and port 3 when measuring the response from port 1 to port
4. The experimental results of the through |S
12
| and coupled
|S
14
| scattering-coefficient magnitudes are plotted in Fig. 5.
The through path from port 1 to port 2 had a coupling of
-3.31 dB and the coupled path from port 1 to port 4 had a
coupling of -3.54 dB at 31.6 GHz. The phase difference
between S
12
and S
14
was 91.5 degrees. The experimental
data matches well with simulation results from HFSS
TM
.
Differences between the simulation and measured data may
have resulted from the support posts in the branch lines,
which were not accounted for in the simulation. The hybrid
coupler performed best at 31.6 GHz, which is slightly off of
the targeted 30 GHz frequency. This variance was most
likely due to the non-optimal value of the L1 branch line.
The optimal value for L1 is 35, but the designed value was
39.
-5.00
-4.50
-4.00
-3.50
-3.00
-2.50
-2.00
27 28 29 30 31 32 33
(a)
-180
-160
-140
-120
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
27 28 29 30 31 32 33
(b)
Fig. 5. (a) Measured and simulated results for the magnitudes
|S
12
| and |S
14
|. (b) Phase difference between through and coupled
ports for the hybrid coupler.
1.0 mm
1.7 mm
2.5 mm
2.5 mm
d
B
Frequency (GHz)
D
e
g
r
e
e
s

Frequency (GHz)
Magnitudes of |S
12
| and |S
14
|
Phase Difference between S
12
and S
14
S12 Simulated
S12 Measured
S14 Measured
S14 Simulated
Simulated
Measured
229
VI. CONCLUSION
We have demonstrated a 30-GHz -3dB, 90 hybrid
coupler having a best-case amplitude and phase difference
within 0.23 dB and 1.5 degrees of the nominal -3dB, 90
o
design. Full-wave simulations of the hybrid coupler show
good agreement on coupling and phase when compared with
measured results. The coupler was designed with
micromachined integrated coax and fabricated using the
EFAB

process. The high inter-line isolation and small turn

radius of integrated coax permitted the coupler to have a
compact footprint not achievable using conventional
guided-wave technology. The 3D geometric flexibility of
the EFAB

process allowed the hybrid coupler to be

fabricated simultaneously on the same substrate with other
RF devices, such as inductors, switches and delay lines.
Future work includes fabricating integrated coax using
copper as a structural material and tiling the hybrid couplers
in a butler matrix configuration for beamforming
applications. Furthermore, other RF components could be
integrated on a single substrate for low loss and excellent
component matching for a wide range of RF applications.
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365, March 2004.
[2] R. T. Chen, E. R. Brown, and C. A. Bang, A Compact Low-
Loss Ka-Band Filter Using 3-Dimensional Micromachined
Integrated Coax, 17
th
IEEE Intl Conference on
MicroElectroMechanical Systems, pp. 801-804, Jan 2004.
[3] J. R. Reid, and R. T. Webster, A 60GHz Branch Line
Coupler Fabricated Using Integrated Rectangular Coaxial
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441-444, June 2004.
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: Rapid Low-Cost Desktop

Micromachining of High Aspect Ratio True 3-D MEMS,
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th
IEEE MicroElectroMechanical Systems Workshop,
pp.22, Jan 1999.
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05677, www.suss.com.
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