Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "E:Engineering and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2024) | Viewed by 10777

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Communications and Networking, School of Advanced Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China
Interests: microwave circuit design; wireless power transfer and energy harvesting; wearable and implantable antenna design
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Guest Editor
Department of Engineering, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Interests: wearable antennas and sensors; flexible antennas; ultra-wideband antennas; reconfigurable antennas; unconventional materials-based antennas

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The development of microwave components and devices has been quite impressive over the past decade. Advances in microwave components and devices have enabled a wide range of applications in communications, radar, navigation, remote sensing, automotive electronics, health care, and wireless/microwave power transmission. Additionally, microwave components and devices are becoming increasingly significant for 5G/6G networks, which require high-speed data transmission and low latency. As the demand for more powerful, efficient, and reliable microwave systems continues to grow, so too does the need for further development of microwave components and devices.  

This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in microwave-integrated circuits, microwave transmitters/receivers, transceiver, amplifiers, passive components, antennas, and rectifying circuits in the domain of radar systems, 5G/6G communication systems, microwave and terahertz engineering, wireless/microwave power transmission, Internet of Things (IoT), and energy harvesting, along with simultaneously wireless information and power transfer. Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • RF/THz integrated microsystem;
  • Microwave/THz antenna design;
  • RF/microwave integrated circuits;
  • Microwave antenna measurements;
  • Semiconductor devices in CMOS technology;
  • Microwave and millimeter-wave integrated passive components/circuits;
  • Wide bandgap semiconductor devices and their integrated circuit;
  • Microwave radar sensors;
  • Metamaterials/metasurfaces.

Dr. Jingchen Wang
Dr. Roy B. V. B. Simorangkir
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • 5G/6G communication systems
  • microwave/wireless power transmission
  • energy harvesting
  • simultaneous wireless information and power transfer
  • Internet of Things (IoT)

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 1867 KiB  
Article
Hybrid Coupler Used as Tunable Phase Shifter Based on Varactor Diodes
by Taleb Mohamed Benaouf, Abdelaziz Hamdoun, Mohamed Himdi, Olivier Lafond and Hassan Ammor
Micromachines 2024, 15(7), 838; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15070838 - 28 Jun 2024
Viewed by 885
Abstract
This paper describes the design of a hybrid coupler with a continuously variable output phase difference. This is achieved by using reconfigurable transmission lines with electrically tunable lengths controlled by two biasing voltages through varactor diodes placed across the coupler branches. The design [...] Read more.
This paper describes the design of a hybrid coupler with a continuously variable output phase difference. This is achieved by using reconfigurable transmission lines with electrically tunable lengths controlled by two biasing voltages through varactor diodes placed across the coupler branches. The design of the coupler is based on the quadrature hybrid structure for the case where the output phase difference is 90° and on the asymmetric structure for the other cases. The proposed coupler can achieve a tunable output phase difference from 52° to 128°, while keeping a coupling coefficient of −3 dB (± 0.5 dB) over the entire desired frequency band. To validate the simulated results, a prototype working at 3.5 GHz was fabricated and tested. The measurement results show good correspondence with the simulation results, especially when the output phase difference is 90°, while a phase mismatch of less than 7° was observed for the other cases. The presented coupler would be a great asset for antenna feeding arrays, especially the Butler matrix. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition)
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14 pages, 11005 KiB  
Article
Development of Wearable Textile MIMO Antenna for Sub-6 GHz Band New Radio 5G Applications
by Pendli Pradeep, Mohammed Mahaboob Basha, Srinivasulu Gundala and Javed Syed
Micromachines 2024, 15(5), 651; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15050651 - 15 May 2024
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1195
Abstract
In this paper, an irregular octagonal two-port MIMO patch antenna is designed specifically for New Radio (NR) 5G applications in the mid-band sub-6 GHz. The proposed antenna comprises an irregularly shaped patch antenna equipped with a regular 50-ohm feed line and a parasitic [...] Read more.
In this paper, an irregular octagonal two-port MIMO patch antenna is designed specifically for New Radio (NR) 5G applications in the mid-band sub-6 GHz. The proposed antenna comprises an irregularly shaped patch antenna equipped with a regular 50-ohm feed line and a parasitic strip line antenna, and is partially grounded. Jeans material serves as a substrate with an effective dielectric constant of 1.6 and a thickness of 1 mm. This material is studied experimentally. The proposed antenna design undergoes analysis and optimization using the ANSYS HFSS tool. Furthermore, the design incorporates the influence of the slot on both the ground plane and the parasitic strip line to optimize performance, enhance isolation, and improve impedance matching among antenna elements. The dimensions of the jeans substrate are 40 mm × 50 mm. The simulated impedance bandwidth ranged from 3.6 GHz to 7 GHz and the measured bandwidth was slightly narrower, from 4.35 GHz to 7 GHz. The simulation results demonstrated an isolation level greater than 12 dB between antenna elements, while the measured results reached 28.5 dB, and the peak gain for this proposed antenna stood at 6.74 dB. These qualities made this proposed antenna suitable for various New Radio mid-band 5G wireless applications within the sub-6 GHz band, such as N79, Wi-Fi-5/6, V2X, and DSRC applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition)
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13 pages, 4660 KiB  
Article
Modified Broadband Ruthroff-Type Transmission Line Transformer Balun for Isolation-Enhanced Passive Mixer Design
by Ding He, Zhentao Yu, Jie Chen, Kaiyuan Du, Zhiqiang Zhu, Pu Cheng and Cheng Tan
Micromachines 2024, 15(3), 332; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15030332 - 28 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1625
Abstract
Generalized broadband operation facilitates multifunction or multiband highly integrated applications, such as modern transceiver systems, where ultra-wideband bidirectional passive mixers are favored to avoid a complex up/down-conversion scheme. In this paper, a modified Ruthroff-type transmission line transformer (TLT) balun is presented to enhance [...] Read more.
Generalized broadband operation facilitates multifunction or multiband highly integrated applications, such as modern transceiver systems, where ultra-wideband bidirectional passive mixers are favored to avoid a complex up/down-conversion scheme. In this paper, a modified Ruthroff-type transmission line transformer (TLT) balun is presented to enhance the isolation of the mixer from the local oscillator (LO) to the radio frequency (RF). Compared to the conventional methods, the proposed Ruthroff-type architecture adopts a combination of shunt capacitors and parallel coupled lines to improve the return loss at the LO port, thus effectively avoiding the area consumption for the diode-to-balun impedance transformation while simultaneously providing a suitable point for IF extraction. In addition, a parallel compensation technique consisting of an inductor and resistor is applied to the RF balun to significantly improve the amplitude/phase balance performance over a wide bandwidth. Benefiting from the aforementioned operations, an isolation-enhanced 8–30 GHz passive double-balanced mixer is designed as a proof-of-principle demonstration via 0.15-micrometer GaAs p-HEMT technology. It exhibits ultra-broadband performance with 7 dB average conversion loss and 50 dB LO-to-RF isolation under 15 dBm LO power. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit area is 0.96 × 1.68 mm2 including all pads. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition)
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14 pages, 5843 KiB  
Article
Improved Performance of Acoustically Actuated Magnetoelectric Antenna with FeGa/FeGaB Bilayer
by Kunqi Li, Qiaozhen Zhang, Yang Chang, Jian Wang, Huiling Liu, Songsong Zhang and Yuandong Gu
Micromachines 2024, 15(2), 190; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15020190 - 27 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1427
Abstract
Acoustically actuated magnetoelectric (ME) antennas utilize acoustic wave resonance to complete the process of receiving and transmitting signals, which promotes the development of antenna miniaturization technology. This paper presents a bilayer magnetostrictive/AlN ME laminated antenna. The proposed laminated antenna uses the FeGa/FeGaB bilayer [...] Read more.
Acoustically actuated magnetoelectric (ME) antennas utilize acoustic wave resonance to complete the process of receiving and transmitting signals, which promotes the development of antenna miniaturization technology. This paper presents a bilayer magnetostrictive/AlN ME laminated antenna. The proposed laminated antenna uses the FeGa/FeGaB bilayer materials as magnetostrictive materials, which combine the advantages of soft magnetic properties of FeGa and the low loss of FeGaB. First, multiphysics modeling and analysis are performed for the proposed ME laminated antenna by finite element method (FEM). The positive/inverse ME effects and the influences of the volume ratio of the FeGa/FeGaB bilayer on the antenna performance are studied. The results show that the output voltage and ME coefficient of the FeGa/FeGaB bilayer magnetostrictive material with a volume ratio of 1:1 are 3.97 times and 195.8% higher than that of the single FeGaB layer, respectively. The eddy current loss is 52.08% lower than that of single-layer FeGa. According to the surface equivalence principle, the far-field radiation process is simulated. The results show that the gain of the ME antenna is 15 dB larger than that of the same-size micro-loop antenna, and the gain of the ME antenna is about −44.9 dB. The improved performance and magnetic tunability of the proposed bilayer magnetostrictive materials make ME antennas excellent candidates for portable devices and implantable medical devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition)
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15 pages, 6720 KiB  
Article
A 10–20 GHz 6-Bit High-Accuracy Digital Step Attenuator with Low Insertion Loss in 0.15 µm GaAs p-HEMT Technology
by Ding He, Zhentao Yu, Jie Chen, Kaiyuan Du, Zhiqiang Zhu, Pu Cheng and Cheng Tan
Micromachines 2024, 15(1), 84; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15010084 - 30 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1447
Abstract
In a beamforming circuit for a modern broadband phased-array system, high accuracy and compactness have received sufficient attention as they are directly related to side lobe level and fabrication cost, respectively. In order to meet the low phase error required, this paper proposed [...] Read more.
In a beamforming circuit for a modern broadband phased-array system, high accuracy and compactness have received sufficient attention as they are directly related to side lobe level and fabrication cost, respectively. In order to meet the low phase error required, this paper proposed an ultra-broadband 6-bit digital step switched-type attenuator (STA) with capacitive/inductive compensation networks. Compared to the conventional methods, the proposed technique employs an improved simplified T-structure with capacitive compensation networks, which simultaneously achieves low insertion loss and high-accuracy amplitude/phase control. In addition, on-chip level shifting circuit is integrated to avoid complex control schemes. The strategy of prioritizing return loss is adopted to alleviate the performance degradation caused by impedance mismatch after cascade. As a proof-of-principle demonstration, a wideband 6-bit STA with core area of only 0.5 mm × 1.8 mm was designed via 0.15-micrometer GaAs pHEMT technology. It exhibits ultra-broadband operation with a 31.5 dB amplitude tuning range and a 0.5 dB tuning step. The insertion loss of the reference state is 4–5.3 dB. The return loss is better than 15 dB for all the 64 states. The RMS amplitude and phase errors are less than 0.2 dB and 2° over the 10 to 20 GHz. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition)
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14 pages, 5939 KiB  
Article
A 77 GHz Power Amplifier with 19.1 dBm Peak Output Power in 130 nm SiGe Process
by Peigen Zhou, Pinpin Yan, Jixin Chen, Zhe Chen and Wei Hong
Micromachines 2023, 14(12), 2238; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14122238 - 14 Dec 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1408
Abstract
This article reports a two-stage differential structure power amplifier based on a 130 nm SiGe process operating at 77 GHz. By introducing a tunable capacitor for amplitude and phase balance at the center tap of the secondary coil of the traditional Marchand balun, [...] Read more.
This article reports a two-stage differential structure power amplifier based on a 130 nm SiGe process operating at 77 GHz. By introducing a tunable capacitor for amplitude and phase balance at the center tap of the secondary coil of the traditional Marchand balun, the balun achieves amplitude imbalance less than 0.5 dB and phase imbalance less than 1 degree within the operating frequency range of 70–85 GHz, which enables the power amplifier to exhibit comparable output power over a wide operating frequency band. The power amplifier, based on a designed 3-bit digital analog convertor (DAC)-controlled base bias current source, exhibits small signal gain fluctuation of less than 5 dB and saturation output power fluctuation of less than 2 dB near the 80 GHz frequency point when the ambient temperature varies in the range of −40 °C to 125 °C. Benefiting from the aforementioned design, the tested single-path differential power amplifier exhibits a small signal gain exceeding 16 dB, a saturation output power exceeding 18 dBm, and a peak saturation output power of 19.1 dBm in the frequency band of 70–85 GHz. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition)
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14 pages, 4626 KiB  
Article
The Extraction of Coupling-of-Modes Parameters in a Layered Piezoelectric Substrate and Its Application to a Double-Mode SAW Filter
by Lingqi Li, Qiaozhen Zhang, Yang Yang, Baichuan Li, Yahui Tian, Xiangyong Zhao and Sulei Fu
Micromachines 2023, 14(12), 2205; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi14122205 - 3 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1994
Abstract
This paper presents an advanced method that combines coupling-of-modes (COM) theory and the finite element method (FEM), which enables the quick extraction of COM parameters and the accurate prediction of the electroacoustic and temperature behavior of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. For validation, [...] Read more.
This paper presents an advanced method that combines coupling-of-modes (COM) theory and the finite element method (FEM), which enables the quick extraction of COM parameters and the accurate prediction of the electroacoustic and temperature behavior of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. For validation, firstly, the proposed method is performed for a normal SAW resonator. Then, the validated method is applied to analysis of an I.H.P. SAW resonator based on a 29°YX−LT/SiO2/SiC structure. Via optimization, the electromechanical coupling coefficient (K2) is increased up to 13.92% and a high quality (Q) value of 1265 is obtained; meanwhile, the corresponding temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) is −10.67 ppm/°C. Furthermore, a double-mode SAW (DMS) filter with low insertion loss and excellent temperature stability is also produced. It is demonstrated that the proposed method is effective even for SAW devices with complex structures, providing a useful tool for the design of SAW devices with improved performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Microwave Components and Devices, 2nd Edition)
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