The equivalent anisotropic material parameters of metal dummy fills in a CMOS chip were extracted through an eigenmode analysis of a unit-cell of a space filled with metal dummies. The validity of the parameters was confirmed by comparing the S-parameters of a parallel-plate waveguide with the metal dummy fills and their effective material properties. The validity of the effective material properties was also confirmed by using them in a simulation of an on-chip dipole antenna.

The authors have proposed a 1 m2 single-layer slotted waveguide array consisting of conducting baffles and quartz glass strips positioned in front of the slot aperture, which is referred to as a vacuum window, for microwave plasma excitation. The effect of the complicated outer vacuum window hinders the realization of uniform distribution. In this paper, a unit-cell of the alternating-phase fed single-layer slotted waveguide array with the vacuum window is analyzed by generalized scattering matrix method (GSM)-method of moments (MoM) hybridization analysis, and the array is designed to realize uniform aperture electromagnetic field distribution, where the plasma and the chamber is neglected. The GSM-MoM analysis gives reliable numerical results while the MoM has numerical errors due to singularities of Green's function for a long cavity. Uniform aperture EM field distribution outside of the vacuum window is observed in near field measurements using a 1/5 scale model antenna, and the validity of the analysis and design is verified.

A rectangular-to-radial waveguide transformer through a crossed slot is proposed as a feeder of a radial line slot antenna (RLSA) for use in a system of solar power satellite (SPS). The transformer is analyzed and designed by using the MoM with numerical eigenmode basis functions. The measured ripple of the amplitude is 3.0 dB in the φ-direction and a 7.0% frequency bandwidth for rotating mode with the ripple below 6 dB is obtained. This bandwidth is wider than that of conventional ring slot or cavity resonator with a coaxial feeder. The antenna measurements at 5.8 GHz show reasonable rotational symmetry both in the near-field distribution and the far field radiation patterns. The reflection is -27.7 dB at the design frequency and below -15 dB in the 7.0% bandwidth. The gain of the antenna with the diameter of 300 mm is 22.7 dBi and the efficiency is 56%.

Method of moments (MoM) is an efficient design and analysis method for waveguide slot arrays. A rectangular entire-domain basis function is one of the most popular approximations for the slot aperture fields. MoM with only one basis function does not provide sufficient accuracy and the use of higher order mode of basis functions is inevitable to guarantee accuracy. However, including the higher order modes in MoM results in a rapid increase in the computational time as well as the analysis complexity; this is a serious drawback especially in the slot parameter optimization. The authors propose the slot correction length that compensates for the omission of higher order mode of basis functions. This length is constant for a wide range of couplings and frequency bands for various types of slots. The validity and universality of the concept of slot correction length are demonstrated for various slots and slot parameters. Practical slot array design can be drastically simplified by the use of MoM with only one basis function together with the slot correction length. As an example, a linear waveguide array of reflection-cancelling slot pairs is successfully designed.

Dense millimeter-wave networks are a promising candidate for next-generation cellular systems enabling multiple gigabit-per-second data rates. A major disadvantage of millimeter-wave systems is signal disruption by rain, and here we propose a novel method for rain sensing using dual-frequency measurements at 25 and 38GHz from a small-scale Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) millimeter-wave network. A real-time algorithm is developed for estimating the rain rate from attenuation using both ITU-R relationships and new coefficients that consider the effects of the rain Drop Size Distribution (DSD). The suggested procedure is tested on measured data, and its performance is evaluated. The results show that the proposed algorithm yields estimates that agree very well with rain gauge data.

A waveguide crossed-slot linear array with a matching element is accurately analyzed and designed by the method of moments using numerical-eigenmode basis functions developed by the authors. The rounded ends of crossed-slots are accurately modeled in the analysis. The initial values of the slot parameters determined by a model with assumption of periodicity of field are modified and refined by the full-wave finite-array analysis for uniform excitation and small axial ratio. As an example, an 8-element linear array is designed at 11.85 GHz, which radiates a circularly polarized wave at a beam-tilting angle of 50 degrees. The radiation pattern, the frequency characteristics of the reflection and the axial ratio are compared between the analysis and the measurement and they agree very well. The calculated and measured axial ratio at the beam direction are 0.1 dB and 1.7 dB, respectively. This method provides a basic and powerful design tool for slotted waveguide arrays.

In this paper, the author performed an electromagnetic field simulation of a typical bonding wire structure that connects a chip and a package, and evaluated the signal transmission characteristics (S-parameters). In addition, the inductance per unit length was extracted by comparing with the equivalent circuit of the distributed constant line. It turns out that the distributed constant line model is not sufficient because there are frequencies where chip-package resonance occurs. Below the resonance frequency, the conventional low-frequency approximation model was effective, and it was found that the inductance was about 1nH/mm.

Locality in high frequency diffraction is embodied in the Method of Moments (MoM) in view of the method of stationary phase. Local-domain basis functions accompanied with the phase detour, which are not entire domain but are much larger than the segment length in the usual MoM, are newly introduced to enhance the cancellation of mutual coupling over the local-domain; the off-diagonal elements in resultant reaction matrix evanesce rapidly. The Fresnel zone threshold is proposed for simple and effective truncation of the matrix into the sparse band matrix. Numerical examples for the 2-D strip and the 2-D corner reflector demonstrate the feasibility as well as difficulties of the concept; the way mitigating computational load of the MoM in high frequency problems is suggested.

A 16×16-element corporate-feed waveguide slot array antenna in the 60-GHz band is designed to achieve broadband reflection and high antenna efficiency. The sub-arrays consisting of 2×2-elements are designed to improve the reflection bandwidth by implementing lower Q and triple resonance. The designed antenna is fabricated by diffusion bonding of thin copper plates. A wide reflection bandwidth with VSWR less than 2.0 is obtained over 21.5%, 13.2GHz (54.7-67.8GHz). The measured gain is 32.6dBi and the corresponding antenna efficiency is 76.5%. The broad bandwidth of more than 31.5-dBi gain is realized over 19.2%, 11.9GHz (56.1-68.0GHz). The gain in bandwidth covers the whole of the license-free 60-GHz band (57-66GHz).

In this paper we present eigenmode analysis of the propagation constant for a microstrip line with dummy fills on a Si CMOS substrate. The effect of dummy fills is not negligible, particularly in the millimeter-wave band, although it has been ignored below frequencies of a few GHz. The propagation constant of a microstrip line with a periodic structure on a Si CMOS substrate is analyzed by eigenmode analysis for one period of the line. The calculated propagation constant and characteristic impedance were compared with measured values for a chip fabricated by the 0.18 µm CMOS process. The agreement between the analysis and measurement was very good. The dependence of loss on the arrangement of dummy fills was also investigated by eigenmode analysis. It was found that the transmission loss becomes large when dummy fills are arranged at places where the electromagnetic field is strong.

A 60-GHz CMOS transmitter with on-chip antenna for high-speed short-range wireless interconnections is presented. The radiation gain of the on-chip antenna is doubled using helium-3 ion irradiation technique. The transmitter core is composed of a resistive-feedback RF amplifier, a double-balanced passive mixer, and an injection-locked oscillator. The wideband and power-saving design of the transmitter core guarantees the low-power and high-data-rate characteristic. The transmitter fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process achieves 5-Gb/s data rate with an EVM performance of $-$12 dB for BPSK modulation at a distance of 1,mm. The whole transmitter consumes 17,mW from a 1.2-V supply and occupies a core area of 0.64,mm$^{2}$ including the on-chip antenna. The gain-enhanced antenna together with the wideband and power-saving design of the transmitter provides a low-power low-cost full on-chip solution for the short-range high-data-rate wireless communication.

A round-ended wide straight slot cut in the broad wall of a rectangular waveguide is analyzed by the Method of Moments (MoM) using numerical eigenmode basis functions derived by the edge-based finite element method (FEM), referred to as MoM/FEM. The frequency characteristics of the calculated transmission coefficients are compared with the measured ones, and good agreement is observed for a wide variety of antenna parameters. For simpler analysis that does not use MoM/FEM, an equivalent rectangular slot approximation for a round-ended slot is discussed. The resonant frequencies of empirically introduced "equal-area" and "equal-perimeter" slots are compared with those of round-ended slots for a wide variety of parameters such as slot width, wall thickness and dielectric constant inside the waveguide. Based upon MoM/FEM, which can be a reliable reference, it is found that the equal-area slot always gives a better approximation of the order of 1% over that of the equal-perimeter one which is of the order of 5%. For higher accuracy, a new rectangular slot approximation of a round-ended slot is proposed to be a linear combination of equal-area and equal perimeter approximation. The error is around 0.25% for a wide variety of parameters such as slot width-to-length ratio, wall thickness and dielectric constant of the filling material inside the waveguide.

The millimeter-wave band suffers strong attenuation due to rain. While calculating the link budget for a wireless system using this frequency band, the behavior of rain, attenuation due to rain, and the amount of degradation must be accurately understood. This paper presents an evaluation of the influence of rain and its attenuation on link performance in a Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) millimeter-wave model mesh network. Conventional statistical analyses including cumulative rain rate distribution and specific rain attenuation constants are performed on data collected from 2009 onwards. The unique effects arising due to the highly localized behaviors of strong rainfalls have become clear and are characterized in terms of variograms rather than correlation coefficients. Spatial separation even in the small network here with links of less than 1 km provides effective diversity branches for better availability performance.