Silicon-Micromachined Devices for mm-Wave and Sub-mm-Wave Communication and Sensing

This talk will give an introduction to silicon micromachining, an enabling fabrication technique for THz and sub-THz devices, as it enables to realize µm-accurate feature sizes and nm surface roughness for very low losses. The devices presented are based on rectangular waveguide technology embedded inside silicon wafers. Devices of different complexity, from waveguide power dividers, couplers, to very complex orthomode transducers, 1024-element antenna arrays at 400GHz, to complete beam steering front-ends for 240GHz car radar applications will be presented. The latest examples are 500–750GHz 36dBi gain dielectric antennas with beam steering capability.