Development of millimeter-wave devices based on liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate

Abstract

Millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) technology is a promising solution to meet ever-increasing demand in wireless data transmission capacity thanks to the availability of large bandwidths at mm-Wave frequencies, where the choice of dielectric materials is one of important issues because the high water absorption at mm-Wave frequencies restricts remarkably the choice. Liquid crystal polymer (LCP) is one of materials available for mm-Wave applications and is able to provide cost-effective solution. In this paper, features of LCP will be introduced for applications at V-band (60 GHz) and E-band (70 GHz, 80 GHz) in terms of dielectric constant, feasible structure, process and reliability. Some LCP-based devices such as transmission line, mode transition between different transmission-lines, antenna and filter will be reviewed. It is demonstrated that LCP-based devices actually have shown good performance and LCP is especially suitable for consumer applications that require high reliability and cost-effectiveness.