In this paper 2-10 GHz hybrid-distributed preamplifiers using two and three cascaded single stage distributed amplifiers are demonstrated. These amplifiers produce available power gains significantly higher than conventional distributed preamplifiers using the same number of active devices. Simulation results show the advantage of the proposed preamplifier over the conventional one. Measured results of the two realised configurations of preamplifiers using two and three cascaded single stage distributed amplifiers are presented. Each configuration shows that the available power gain can be increased by increasing interstage characteristic impedance of the cascaded single stage distributed amplifiers. The measured available power gain for two stages shows an improvement from 18 dB to 20 dB, and for three stages an improvement from 26 dB to 31 dB across the 2-10 GHz frequency band, as the inter-stage characteristic impedance is increased from low to high level. Input and output return losses better than -10 dB, and input-output isolation better than -55 dB at the beginning of the band and better than -45 dB at the end are achieved. This approach also provides a good measured noise figure performance of an average of 4 dB across the 2-10 GHz frequency band for both two and three cascaded stages. The group delay of both cascaded amplifiers are measured. Its flat performance proves the viability of this approach which is suitable for digital optical communication and pulse applications.

The design and performance of a S-band solid-state power amplifier (SSPA) module are reported. The SSPA module consisted from four MMIC power amplifiers (PA) achieves 90 W output power, 35% power added efficiency (PAE), and 80% power combine efficiency. The MMIC PA achieves over 28 W output power, 25 dB small signal gain, and over 38% PAE. This paper also describes the large-signal circuit design for the MMIC PA using an improved nonlinear FET model developed for high power amplifier applications.

When designing microwave amplifiers, it is the task to select values of the source (input generator) and load reflection coefficients for the transistor, to achieve certain amplifier performance requirements and ensure stability. For unconditionally stable transistors, simultaneous conjugate matching can be achieved using well-known design formulae. Under this condition, the gain is maximised, and the input and output ports are matched. On the other hand when the transistor is conditionally stable, source and load reflection coefficients are selected using graphical design methods, involving gain and stability circles. To eliminate the reliance on graphical techniques, this paper shows the derivation of explicit design formulae that ensure maximum gain for a minimum specified safety margin, with one port matched. In this work, the safety margin is the distance between the chosen source or load reflection coefficient and its respective stability circle. In a production environment, where the circuit and transistor parameters are subject to random variations, the safety margin therefore makes allowance for such variations. This paper shows that the design problem for conditionally stable transistors can be reduced from the selection of values for two complex variables (port terminations) to the selection of the value for just one scalar variable.

Tradeoffs between efficiency, power and reliability were analyzed for the GaAs MESFETs with variable recess structures. The MESFET process can be optimized for either best power/efficiency performance or best reliability by varying the width of the first recess. If the first recess width is increased by 0.4 µm, an estimated order of magnitude increase in device lifetime, limited by hot-electron-induced degradation, can be achieved at the expense of 3% in power-added efficiency and 20 mW/mm in output power. The reported hot-electron reliability highlights include maximum sustainable reverse gate current stress of 100 mA/mm and (Stress)(Lifetime) figure of merit of 12.5 Ahr/cm which advances the present state of the art by approximately an order of magnitude. The introduced (Stress)(Lifetime) figure of merit is essential for design-for-reliability of high efficiency power amplifiers.

We have developed a new type of phase interpolation direct digital synthesizer (DDS) with a symmetrically structured delay generator. The new DDS is similar to a sine output DDS in that it produces lower spurious signals, but it does not require a sine look-up table. The symmetrically structured delay generator reduces the periodic jitter in the most significant bit (MSB) of the DDS accumulator. The symmetrical structure enables the delay generator to produce highly accurate delay timing and eliminates the need to adjust the circuit constants. Experimental results confirm frequency synthesizer operation in which the spurious signal level is reduced to less than that of the accumulator.

A 60-GHz-band monolithic HEMT amplifier for which BCB thin film layers are adopted on GaAs substrate has been developed. The MMIC utilized a thin film microstrip line for the bias circuit and a coplanar waveguide for the RF circuit. The coplanar waveguide has the advantage of low loss, whereas the thin film microstrip line has the advantage of small size. Two different types of transmission lines were selected to coexist in the monolithic amplifier. As a result, the MMIC achieved high gain over a wider frequency range at a small size. This MMIC had a gain of over 15 dB in a frequency bandwidth of 11 GHz. In particular, the high-frequency characteristics of the transmission lines and the HEMTs were evaluated in detail for the conventional MMIC structure and the new MMIC structure. It was confirmed that this newly developed MMIC using BCB thin film layers is attractive for millimeter-wave applications.

49-GHz operation for a state-of-the-art static frequency divider using FETs is achieved with high-performance 0.1-µm-gate InAlAs/InGaAs/InP HEMTs and high-speed double-layer interconnections with a thick low-permittivity BCB inter-layer dielectric film. An experiment shows that the propagation delay for the upper-layer line in the double-layer interconnections is less than half of that for the conventional single-layer interconnections directly on InP-substrate. The frequency divider with the double-layer interconnections is about 20% faster than the conventional one with the single-layer interconnections. A delay time analysis reveals that this speed increase is due to the decrease in interconnection propagation delay.

A GaAs linear power amplifier operating with a single 3-V supply has been developed for 5.8-GHz ISM band applications. Two kinds of refractory WN_x/W self-aligned gate MESFETs, a P-pocket MESFET and an asymmetric MESFET with a buried p-layer (BP- MESFET ) have been compared in terms of DC characteristics, small signal characteristics and power performances at 5.8 GHz. To obtain both high gain and high efficiency in the case of single 3-V supply operation at 5.8 GHz, we used a highly efficient and linear P-pocket MESFET for the output-stage power FET and a high-gain asymmetric MESFET with a buried p-layer (BP- MESFET ) for the driver-stage FET. The bias condition for 1-mm output-stage P-pocket MESFET was set near class-AB, so as to obtain sufficient output power with high PAE. The two-stage power amplifier MMIC module which can include all matching and biasing circuits, has been designed and fabricated. The amplifier exhibits a high power gain of 17.9 dB and a high power-added efficiency of 25.7% with a sufficient output power of 18.7 dBm at the 1-dB compression point. This self-aligned gate GaAs MESFET technology is promising for near-future 5.8-GHz applications, because of such good power performance and good mass-producibility.

A very low spurious frequency doubler for wireless communication systems is proposed. The key to this technique is to change the input signal into a rectangular wave, which effectively suppresses the fundamental frequency and the odd harmonic components. The desired to undesired signal ratio (D/U) is better than 50 dBc at the desired output frequency of 1.1 GHz. The proposed doubler eliminates the need for the band-pass filters which occupy a large part of the radio frequency (RF) module. High order multipliers easily are fabricated with this method. In this paper, a quadrupler is also described.

The conductor-backed asymmetrical coplanar waveguide or micro-coplanar strip (MCS) line has been analyzed. The conformal mapping method is used to calculate the quasi-static effective permittivity ε_eff and characteristic impedance Z₀. The computed results of the present work are found to be in good agreement when compared with the results obtained using the method reported by Yamashita et al. [1] and experimental values reported in [2]. A novel MCS end-coupled half-wavelength long resonator filter is designed to illustrate an application of the present work. The designed filter has 4% bandwidth at a center frequency of 10.5 GHz. The measured insertion loss is approximately 3.4 dB. One of the main advantages of the MCS filter compared to the CPW filter is that bond wires do not have to be used to maintain both coplanar ground at the same potential. The MCS filter is also easily integrable with other planar components and does not require a complicated transition to microstrip.

Coupling effects between resonators on a laminated Band Elimination Filter (BEF) is studied. The coupling degrades the filter attenuation performance. A new equivalent circuit of coupled-line BEF with loaded capacitors is investigated. The performance is simulated and the improvement by staggered resonators is confirmed. An experimental filter made of Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCC) is constructed. It shows good performance.

In this paper, a novel design method for bandpass filter with attenuation poles (BAP) is presented. The changed inverter element values due to inserting either capacitors or inductors can be optimized using the linear relationship between inverter element values of a conventional bandpass filter (BPF) and those of the BAP using the Touchstone program. A 1800-1825 MHz bandpass filter with attenuation poles for duplexers is designed and fabricated using coaxial dielectric resonators. The validity of this design approach is demonstrated by a computer simulation. The resonators are simulated equivalently as shorted lossy transmission lines. The measured results of center frequency, bandwidth, and attenuation pole frequencies closely agree with the design values.

An intrinsic property of a tapped resonator is elucidated here, and a novel bandpass filter (BPF) with improved skirt characteristics based on a tapped half-wavelength resonator is proposed by this intrinsic property. "Tapping" for both I/O and interstage couplings of the resonator is the key concept here because a resulting open-ended resonator makes shunt open stubs which give anti-resonance near the center frequency. Multiple attenuation poles appear near the center frequency, namely, close to the passband. A BPF is designed on the basis of the general filter theory with a narrow band approximation. An experiment is carried out to confirm the concept by using a coplanar structure. The expected bandpass characteristics with multiple attenuation poles have been obtained by the novel BPF designed by the present concept.

Excitation of magnetostatic surface waves by slot line transducers is analyzed by using the integral kernel expansion method. The Fourier integral for the current density is derived in terms of an unknown normal component of the magnetic flux density in a slot region. The integral kernel is expanded into a series of orthogonal polynomials and then applying Galerkin's method to the resulting equation yields a system of linear equations for the unknown coefficients. Comparison of a numerical result by the present method with an experiment is in good agreement.

Problems of flipped-chip MMIC at millimeter-wave frequency are investigated. Practical design criteria are introduced to obtain resonance and cutoff frequency for parasitic mode with flipped-chip MMIC structure. We investigate the advantages and disadvantages of three types of transmission line for flipped-chip MMIC in both electromagnetic simulation and scale-model. To avoid the resonance in coplanar waveguide flipped-chip MMIC new bridge structure is proposed.

The Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method has been applied to study the scattering characteristics of Fabry-Perot cavities with infinite planar periodic surfaces. Periodic Boundary Conditions (PBC) are used to reduce the analysis to one unit periodic volume. Both dielectric and metallic losses are included in the algorithm using a frequency dependent formalism. This technique is used to study the frequency response of plane parallel Fabry-Perot cavities with square aperture metal mesh mirrors. These cavities are assumed to be illuminated by a normally incident plane wave. After a detailed description of the algorithm, we show theoretically the separate effects of dielectric and metal losses on the transmission coefficient of such cavities. We compare also simulation results to measurements, in the 60 GHz band, of resonant frequencies and Q factors of cavities with various mesh parameters.

This paper suggests a new type of 180-degree 3 dB hybrid, which consists of a cylindrical cavity and four E-plane rectangular waveguides radially coupled with it, and shows that good hybrid properties are realized by modifying the positions of the four input/output waveguides and the radius of the cylindrical cavity that are determined by the field distribution of the TE₁₁₁ resonant mode. Moreover, a method of broadening the bandwidth with additional impedance steps is described. The present hybrid is marked by simple structure, and hence is useful for applications at millimeter wave frequencies and to high-power microwave systems. Experimental verification is additionally shown.

In this paper, outlines of the derivation of two recently developed finite difference beam propagation methods based on the higher-order Pad approximations are given to simulate the optical field propagation of tilted and turning waveguides. In order to investigate the accuracy and limitation for a propagation angle of these approaches, numerical results are presented for two benchmark tests. The present algorithms will offer, to our knowledge, the new beam propagation methods in optics.

This paper presents a technique for miniaturization of microstrip line and coplanar waveguide for microwave integrated circuits by using airbridge technology. A theoretical analysis is given by a combination of the conformal mapping technique and the variational principle. Numerical results demonstrate significant effects on size reduction as well as wide range of the characteristic impedance variation due to the airbridge.

We address, in this paper, the main features of hybrid modes propagating in a rectangular waveguide partially filled with pseudochiral Ω-slabs. For the particular case of a uniaxial Ω-slab, we show that LSE and LSM hybrid modes can propagate in this inhomogeneously filled rectangular waveguide. The influence of the Ω-parameter, which characterizes the magnetoelectric tensors of the bianisotropic slab, on LSM modes is analyzed--namely an increase in the bandwidth for monomodal operation is reported. In addition, a field displacement effect and a variable phase shift proportional to the change of the Ω-parameter are attained. Finally, it is shown that the propagation characteristics are independent of the direction of propagation and so, unlike the case of magnetically biased ferrite loading, reciprocal devices can be achieved.

High-temperature superconductor (HTS) receiving filter subsystem for mobile telecommunication base station has been developed. An 11-pole HTS filter using YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ (YBCO) thin films and a low noise amplifier were cooled to 70 K by a small cryocooler. Total noise figure of this subsystem was measured to be 0.5 dB. Furthermore the effect of using the subsystem in the receiver front-end of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) cellular base station was investigated. The transmitting power reduction of handy terminal was estimated to be about 35%.

We propose a novel planar filter design for narrow-band applications. The filter consists of half-wavelength ring resonators with open gaps. This design has three advantages over conventional planar designs: a smaller size despite narrow bandwidth, a sharper skirt response at the passband edge without notch, an excellent out-band attenuation. We demonstrated these advantages by fabricating an 8-poles filter centered at 1.95 GHz with a 5 MHz bandwidth using YBCO films on a 2 inch diameter MgO substrate.

Design of circularly polarized active antennas of dual-fed square patch type is given, and spatial power combining and phased array operation of the antennas have been successfully achieved. In a phased array experiment of the arrays with two and three active antennas by the method of varying their free-running oscillation frequencies, we obtained the scan angles from -12 to +13 and those from -13 to +13, respectively, and good axial ratios together with high spatial power-combining efficiencies.

In coupled oscillator arrays, it is possible to control the inter-element phase shift up to 180 by free-running frequency distribution based on injection-locking phenomenon. In this paper, a new technique to control the inter-element phase shift electronically up to the maximum extent of 360 is reported. Oscillators are unilaterally coupled to the preceding oscillator through one of the two paths, which differ from each other 180 in electrical length and each includes an amplifier. Turning on the desired amplifier one can control the phase shift either -180 to 0 or 0 to 180. The technique was applied in a three-element oscillator array each coupled to a patch antenna via a round aperture. The radiation beam of the array could be scanned 47 in total.

The onboard antenna beam forming network (BFN) of the next-generation communication satellites must offer multiple beam forming and beam steering. The conventional BFN, which directly controls the array elements, is not suitable for a large-scale array antenna because of the difficulty of BFN control. This paper proposes a new BFN configuration that consists of three/four-way variable power dividers and a Butler matrix (FFT circuit). This BFN can offer continuous beam steering with fewer variable components. By introducing new techniques based upon excluding FFT periods and power evaluations by definite integration, the deviation in beamwidth is reduced by 75% or more and the maximum sidelobe level is improved by 10 dB or more.

This paper describes a multibeam antenna which uses switched parasitic and switched active elements to obtain multiple simultaneous directional beams that can be steered in azimuth. A 13 element monopole multibeam array has been optimised for gain and front to back ratio. Results from numerical simulation and measurements in an anechoic chamber are presented. The 13 element array can achieve up to three beams simultaneously with a minimum gain over 360 azimuthal coverage of 1.2 dB less than the maximum gain. Located on a ground plane with diameter of 2λ at 1.5 GHz, the maximum elevation angle was 20.2 with -3 dB vertical beamwidth of 88.

A novel dual-band internal antenna similar in size to the single-band internal antenna for cellular handsets is proposed. Our approach to realize a small and low-profile dual-band internal antenna is to use the dominant mode (TM₁₀ mode) and the higher-order mode (TM₃₀ mode). In order to use this approach for recent dual-band cellular systems it is necessary to lower the resonant frequency of the higher-order mode (TM₃₀ mode). This motivated our development of a new antenna configuration with a slot on the radiation element of a quarter-wavelength shorted microstrip antenna to lower the resonant frequency of the TM₃₀ mode. In this paper, the experimental and the analytical results for this antenna are presented. In the results, by adjusting the location and the length of the slot, the dual-frequency operation can be achieved with the frequency ratio (TM₃₀ mode/TM₁₀ mode) from 2 to 3. In addition, the enhancement of bandwidth is presented.

A cavity-backed two-element rectangular loop slot antenna for circular polarization is presented and investigated by using the generalized network formulation based on the equivalence principle. By applying the method of moments, the magnetic current including the effect of the cavity is obtained for a thin rectangular loop slot. Two short-circuiting points are introduced on the slots to get circular polarization and symmetrical radiation pattern. The axial ratio bandwidth (3 dB) with VSWR (2) reaches 7.6%. The measured and computed results are in good agreement.

Active frequency-tuning beam-scanning leaky-mode antenna arrays have been demonstrated in this paper. These antennas integrated one or several microstrip leaky-wave antenna elements with a single varactor-tuned HEMT VCO as an active source. Noted that the measured scan angles of the 11 and 14 antennas were approximately 24 and the scanning range of the 12 antenna was 20. Furthermore, reflected wave due to the open end of each leaky-wave antenna element has been suppressed by the symmetric configuration of this antenna array and the antenna efficiency increases. When comparing with the measured radiation pattern of the single element antenna, we found that the 12 and 14 antenna arrays can effectively suppress the reflected power by more than 5.5 dB and 10.5 dB, respectively, at 10.2 GHz. The power gain are more than 2 dB and 3.16 dB higher than the single element antenna with a measured EIRP of 18.67 dBm.

60 GHz band conical beam radial line slot antennas (RLSA's) are designed and fabricated. Antennas are made of PTFE substrate with copper for high accuracy and mass producibility in millimeter wave frequency. The radiation pattern such as directivity and beam direction can be controlled by changing the excitation of slots. The measured radiation pattern is in reasonable agreement with the predicted one in main beam direction. The measured gain is about 2.5 dB smaller than the predicted gain.

Microstrip leaky-wave antenna fed by an aperture-coupled microstrip operating at K-band is presented. Using the aperture-coupled microstrip as a feeding structure can fully exploit the wideband characteristic of the microstrip leaky-wave antenna. The dimensions of the antenna are obtained from the calculation of the propagation characteristics. Measurement shows a bandwidth of 22% for VSWR < 2:1 and a peak power gain of 12 dBi at 22 GHz for one element. Four-element array is developed with a gain of 18.7 dBi and the frequency-scanning feature is exhibited. The waveguide model is verified by measuring the 3-D radiation pattern of the microstrip leaky-wave array.

This paper presents the radiation characteristics of a circularly polarized conical beam spherical slot array antenna for applying to the mobile satellite communication subscriber. The structure of the antenna is easy to fabricate i. e. , a ring of perpendicular slot pairs cut on an outer surface of a concentric conducting spherical cavity enclosed by the conducting conical surface with the simple feeding structure, and a linear electric probe excited at the center of the inner surface of the cavity. Radiation fields of a spherical slot array antenna are calculated by superposing the patterns of all the slots. From the numerical results of the radiation pattern, in both elevational and azimuthal planes, it is obvious that the conical beam is realized. The elevational beam direction is low, which is suitable for installing in the land mobile subscriber unit located far from the equator. The tracking system is not necessary because the azimuthal pattern is omnidirectional. Directivity of the antenna for various spherical radii and angles of slot positions are illustrated as the guidelines for the design. Experimental results are in good agreement with the predictions.

Thin-film slot-array receiving antennas fed by coplanar waveguide (CPW) were fabricated on fused quartz substrates, and the antenna properties were investigated at 700 GHz. It was confirmed that the transmission efficiency of CPW was 0.83/λ_m, and the rate of radiated power from a slot antenna was 0.5 at 700 GHz. The fabricated antennas worked as expected from the theory based on the transmission line model, and the two-dimensional 83 slot-array antenna fed by CPW increased the power gain by 11 dB over a single-slot antenna. The power gain of the antenna was 13 dBi and the aperture efficiency was 40% when the 700 GHz-submillimeter wave was irradiated through the substrate.

This paper presents a prediction of the millimeter-wave multipath propagation characteristics in the typical urban environment. To analyze the propagation in an outdoor environment, the three dimensional model based on the geometrical optics and the uniform geometrical theory of diffraction is employed. Prediction by the three dimensional ray tracing method needs a detailed map, which records locations and shapes of obstacles surrounding a transmitter and a receiver. It is usually difficult to create a complete map because tremendous data is necessary to describe the area structure. We propose, in this report, a three dimensional propagation model to predict the millimeter wave propagation characteristics by using the information available from only a map on the market. This approach gives us much convenience in the actual design. The modeled results are demonstrated and furthermore comparison are made between the simulated results and the experimental data.

This paper presents algorithms for extracting the values of relevant parameters from field measurements and 3-dimensional geographical data to be used in neural network modeling of wave propagation loss in microcells. The algorithms extract the feature values from 3-dimensional elevation maps and vector maps based on the theory in Computational Geometry. The neural networks trained on these parameters as their input approximate the function of wave propagation loss and can produce predictions with high accuracy. Some experimental results which show the superior performance of our approach over COST-231 method in actual PCS cell sites operating in the city of Seoul are presented.

The transfer function or impulse response of propagation path is one of the most fundamental and most important quantities for equalizing the distortions cased by multipath propagation. In this paper, precise identification of the transfer function of the propagation path under multipath condition is presented. By use of the least-square method, uncertainty due to white noise is sufficiently eliminated.

The wavelet matrix transform approach, in combination with the method of moments (MoM), is applied to solve the electromagnetic scattering problem of an array of metal strips. The problem is first discretized by the conventional MoM to obtain a dense impedance matrix, then the wavelet matrix transform is applied to produce a sparse matrix. This approach avoids a great number of integral computations existing in the wavelet basis expansion method and provides fast approach to solution for the scattering problem. Daubechies' wavelet is chosen as the mother wavelet to construct a sparse wavelet matrix so that the matrix-matrix multiplications occurring in the transform cost only O(N²) with N unknowns. Numerical tests show that the computation cost necessary for solving the resultant sparse matrix is only O(N log N). An appropriate choice of the number of vanishing moments of wavelets is suggested from consideration of total computation cost and accuracy of solutions.

By integrating three networks, namely, Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), Personal Handy-Phone System (PHS) and Intelligent Network (IN) to work together as a Personal Communication Telephone (PCT) service to be offered in the Bangkok metropolis area, the PCT service enables the advent of three new concepts, first, using the same telephone number as that of the fixed line to become a "Personal Number," second, a cell coverage designed to cover larger areas than that of the PHS (by changing hand-out threshold level from 33 dBµV to 30 dBµV and hand-in threshold level from 30 dBµV to 25 dBµV) in order to reduce the muting time during the handover process and provide higher mobility at up to 60 kilometers per hour, and third, a technique of "2 carriers per area" to reduce "call drop." All these techniques will be described in this paper.

There is currently a need for development of a new frequency band to enable creation of next-generation mobile communication systems. Of the potential bands, the 3 GHz and over microwave band holds the greatest promise. Experimental studies on the delay characteristics of multipath propagation must be conducted in order to achieve high-speed transmission in the microwave band. We have developed a system for measuring the microwave broadband propagation delay profile over 100 MHz spread bandwidths in the 3, 8 and 15 GHz bands. Our experiments confirmed system performances of 20-ns resolution, 40-µs maximum measurable delay, relative amplitude error of within 3 dB and dynamic range of over 60 dB. We used our system to measure delay profiles on an urban area with line of sight, particularly, in terms of the effects of mobile antenna height. Typical examples are presented. Analysis showed that delay spreads increased with transmit/receive distance and decreased with the higher antenna height.

This paper presents a novel four-sector shaped-beam antenna suitable for base station antennas in 60-GHz wireless local area networks (LANs). The antenna has a plateau configuration, whose four side walls have four linearly arranged microstrip antennas. Each trapezoidal facet excites a shaped beam in the elevation plane in order to meet link-budget requirement between base station and remote terminal, taking account of directional patters of remote terminal antennas. Low-loss curved microstrip-line is applied to connect the three-dimensional antennas with active circuits mounted on a flat carrier plate. This antenna has been adopted as the base station antenna in 60-GHz wireless LANs. The first-stage transmission experiment confirms the usefulness of shaped-beam antennas in the 60-GHz band.

The architecture design and test results of simulation facility named millimeter-wave Test Bed has been described. Contrast with a millimeter-wave sounder, the Test Bed proposed in this paper can characterize radio channels, received signals, target reflections and radio link performance at the millimeter-wave band of 60 GHz. For fixible simulation and analysis of the performances of newly designed millimeter-wave systems, major digital signal processing parts like a sophisticate waveform generator and an analyzer, a modulator, a demodulator, an encoder, a decoder, an equalizer in the Test Bed are implemented by a software using SPW. This software based Test Bed can be used as a "deign tool" for the simulation of the millimeter-wave communication systems very flexibly without hardware modification in different specifications. The Test Bed consists of a millimeter-wave transmitter, a receiver of 60 GHz, 1.95 GHz up/down converter as IF module and a digital signal processing module. The I/Q vector modulator and demodulator with a video bandwidth of 37.5 MHz in the Test Bed can simulate or test the application of high data rate communication systems of short distance.

This paper presents a novel full-band optoelectronic system extending the capabilities of vector network measurements to the millimeter-wave regime both in small and large signal analysis. The design of the measurement system is made with an emphasis on its practicability for real-world applications using all 1.55-µm-wavelength-based photonic technology. We demonstrate the performance of this network analyzer by measuring the 2-port S-parameters of a HEMT device. The accuracy of the results is also shown by comparing them with conventional 50-GHz electronic measurements. The transit frequency of the active device of over 100 GHz is directly measured for the first time to our knowledge.

A novel millimeter-wave on-wafer CAT(Computer-Aided-Testing ) system has been developed for measurement of S-parameters and NF ( Noise figure ). For the S-parameter test system, we have developed a holder setup and installed it in a semi-automatic wafer prober so that the waveguide-based T/R module can be directly connected to a probe-head through fixed waveguides, which feature low insertion loss of less than 2 dB, from 75 GHz to 98 GHz. The accuracy of the developed test system was confirmed by measuring, with this system, a co-planar offset short pattern then comparing measured and simulated results. A good agreement between the measured and calculated, in both return loss and return phase successfully demonstrated the superiority of the system. A W-band NF test system with a system noise of less than 8 dB has been also developed to provide an on-wafer NF measurement capability with an accuracy of 0.3 dB. These S-parameter and NF test systems possess great advantages to achieve high-speed automatic MMIC testing up to W-band.

In microwave hyperthermia for cancer therapy, two power feeding techniques can be utilized: incoherent and coherent operations. In the incoherent operation, not-synchronized microwave power is fed into each array element, whereas the coherent operation is achieved by feeding synchronized microwave to the array elements. The authors have been studying the coaxial-slot antenna for interstitial microwave hyperthermia. The antenna is usually employed as an array applicator inserting several antennas into the tissue to generate large heating area. So far we have examined the control of the heating pattern by feeding techniques in order to obtain more uniform and enlarged heating region. Particularly, `tip-heating,' which means sufficient heating at the area near the tip of the applicator, is significant not to damage surrounding normal tissue in interstitial hyperthermia. In this paper, two feeding techniques are combined and calculated temperature distributions in a hexagonal array applicator are examined by solving Pennes bioheat transfer equation by finite difference method. As a result, in the coherent feeding, large heating area was obtained, while better tip-heating was achieved in the incoherent feeding. Moreover, an instance of sequential combination of two feeding techniques is depicted. In this case, temperature distribution had both characteristics of large heating area and tip-heating, therefore the ability of the control of heating characteristics by sequential combination of the coherent and the incoherent feedings was presented.

If a four-port network is terminated by arbitrary impedances, the conventional methods for even- and/or odd-mode excitation analyses are not available because no symmetry planes exist. Under these conditions, two types of new design equations for asymmetric 3-dB branch-line hybrids are reported. To make sure that the derived design equations are correct and adaptable, simulations were performed under assumed ideal conditions for one type of asymmetric 3-dB branch-line hybrid and a uniplanar branch-line hybrid terminated by 50 Ω, 41.6 Ω, 55.6 Ω and 62.5 Ω was fabricated and measured for another type of asymmetric 3-dB branch-line hybrid.

This paper describes an MOS current-mode, voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) circuit that potentially operates with a 2 V supply voltage, 500 MHz oscillation frequency, and -90 dBc/Hz phase noise at the 1 MHz offset. It also has an improved oscillation frequency linearity of the control voltage and 11 mW power dissipation. The oscillation frequency reached 920 MHz when the supply voltage was increased to 3 V.

A model that combines free-space loss (proportional to the square of distance d) and excess loss has been known to assess the microwave line-of-sight (LOS) path loss in street microcell environments. The excess loss represents the effects of shadowing obstacles. We measure the path loss at the 3.35, 8.45, and 15.75 GHz frequencies in an urban environment, and analyze the distance characteristics of the pass loss for mobile antenna heights of 2.7, 1.6, and 0.5 m. Results show that using a new model that bases on a d^α formula instead of d² in the conventional model produced a better fit to the measured data. They also show that lowering the mobile antenna to a height of 0. 5 m made it possible to virtually ignore the excess loss factor and, instead, use the d^α formula to assess the path loss characteristics.

This paper describes a wide-frequency-range phase-locked-loop (PLL) clock generator embedded in a gate array LSI using 0.25 µm CMOS/SIMOX technology. The four ratios of internal clock frequency to external clock frequency this generator supports are 2, 4, 8, and 16. The PLL has two kinds of voltage-controlled oscillators that are selected automatically according to the frequency so as to widen the operating frequency range while keeping jitter low. Measured results show that the PLL operates with a lock range from 5 to 500 MHz. At 500 MHz, the peak-to-peak jitter is 50 ps. The supply voltage is 2 V and power dissipation is less than 14 mW. At a supply voltage of 2 V, the maximum operating frequency of 0.25 µm CMOS/SIMOX PLL is 30% higher than that of 0.25 µm bulk CMOS PLL.

Anomalous leakage current which flows between source and drain in thin film SOI MOSFET's is investigated. It is confirmed that the leakage current is caused by enhanced diffusion of the source/drain dopants along the LOCOS-induced crystal defects. Stress analysis by 2D simulation reveals that thinning a buried-oxide effectively suppresses deformation of an SOI film associated with over-oxidation during LOCOS. It is experimentally confirmed that using a SIMOX substrate which has a thinner buried-oxide causes no noticeable deformation of the SOI film nor anomalous leakage current.

This paper describes a new measurement method of a CD-SEM with nanometer-level precision and good correlation with electrical characteristics for an actual device of ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI). With the decrease in feature size, the pattern to be measured tends to become a curved shape. In order to measure such a pattern within measurement precision on the order of 5 nm, two-dimensional measurement is effective. Here we report a new measurement algorithm featuring that the critical dimension is derived from the value of the area of a measurement pattern. We apply this measurement method to actual device of 64-Mbit DRAM and confirm the reproducibility of 3.6 nm for the gate linewidth measurement, and that of 5.6 nm for the hole diameter measurement. Furthermore, we verify that the measurement values of the gate linewidth have a strong correlation with the threshold voltage and those of the hole diameter also have a strong correlation with the contact resistance, respectively.