KAUST

Repository

Micromachined On-Chip Dielectric Resonator Antenna

Operating at 60 GHz

Item type Article

Authors Sallam, Mai; Serry, Mohamed; Sedky, Sherif; Shamim,

Atif; De Raedt, Walter; A.E. Vandenbosch, Guy; Soliman,
Ezzeldin

Citation Micromachined On-Chip Dielectric Resonator Antenna

Operating at 60 GHz 2015:1 IEEE Transactions on
Antennas and Propagation

Eprint version Post-print

DOI 10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694

Journal IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

Rights (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted.

Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users,
including reprinting/ republishing this material for
advertising or promotional purposes, creating new
collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or
lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work
in other works.

Downloaded 22-Apr-2017 11:08:19

Link to item http://hdl.handle.net/10754/561078

This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 1

Micromachined On-Chip Dielectric Resonator

Antenna Operating at 60 GHz
Mai O. Sallam, Student Member, IEEE, Mohamed Serry, Member, IEEE,
Sherif Sedky, Member, IEEE, Atif Shamim, Senior Member, IEEE, Walter De Raedt,
Guy A. E. Vandenbosch, Fellow, IEEE, and Ezzeldin A. Soliman, Senior Member, IEEE

antennas was first introduced in 1983 [1]. Since that time,

Abstract This paper presents a novel cylindrical Dielectric DRAs received great attention due to their appealing
Resonator Antenna (DRA) suitable for millimeter-wave on-chip characteristics like small footprint, light weight, absence of
systems. The antenna was fabricated from a single high resistivity surface wave and metallic losses. In addition, DRAs can have
silicon wafer via micromachining technology. The new antenna
was characterized using HFSS and experimentally with good
various geometrical topologies. DRAs can be excited using a
agreement been found between the simulations and experiment. variety of feeding structures like co-axial lines [2], microstrip
The proposed DRA has good radiation characteristics, where its lines [3], coplanar waveguides [4], aperture excitation [5], and
gain and radiation efficiency are 7 dBi and 79.35%, respectively. even conformal strip excitation [6]. However, the fabrication
These properties are reasonably constant over the working of DRAs in the millimeter-wave range is challenging [7],
frequency bandwidth of the antenna. The return loss bandwidth owing to the relatively small features required. The thickness
was 2.23 GHz, which corresponds to 3.78% around 60 GHz. The
of the substrate carrying the feeding microwave circuit must
antenna was primarily a broadside radiator with 15 dB cross
polarization level. be electrically thin in order to avoid surface wave modes
Index TermsOn-chip antennas, dielectric resonator excitation. Besides, any misalignment between the DRA and
antennas, micromachining technology, mm-wave applications. the feeding structure results in significant impedance
mismatch [7].
Research carried out in the area of DRAs can be classified
I. INTRODUCTION into two categories. The first category is concerned with
improving the antenna electrical characteristics. The substrates
T HE ever increasing demand for high performance
communication systems has motivated the shift of
wireless systems towards the millimeter-wave (mm-wave)
carrying the driving circuit are made from non-semiconductor
materials (neither silicon nor GaAs). Therefore, antennas in
range. At these relatively high frequencies, microstrip this category are not suitable for on-chip integration. In [8],
antennas suffer from high conductor and substrate losses the substrate used has relative permittivity, r, of 10.2,
resulting in the deterioration of the antenna radiation whereas in [9-14], the substrates used were teflon with r= 2.2.
efficiency. The replacement of the lossy planar metallic In [8], stacked DRAs were designed to achieve good radiation
antennas with high permittivity Dielectric Resonator Antennas characteristics where a gain of 6 dBi and bandwidth of 24%
(DRAs) is considered a good solution to this problem. The were realized. Another technique for improving the gain was
idea of using Dielectric Resonators (DRs) as radiating introduced in [9]. The gain of the DRA was enhanced by using
a superstrate located at a certain distance from the DRA. A
gain higher than 11 dBi and a bandwidth of 18.4% were
obtained. Further enhancement for the gain has been made in
M. O. Sallam is with Physics Department, School of Sciences and
Engineering, The American University in Cairo (AUC), New Cairo 11835, [10], where the superstrate was stacked with multiple metallic
Egypt. She is also with ESAT/TELEMIC, KU Leuven, 3001 Leuven, Belgium strips. The gain of that antenna was higher than 15.4 dBi over
(e-mail: mai.sallam@aucegypt.edu; mai.sallam@esat.kuleuven.be). its working bandwidth. Excitation of higher order modes of
M. Serry is with Mechanical Engineering Department, School of Sciences
and Engineering, The American University in Cairo (AUC), New Cairo the DRA is also considered a method for improving the gain
11835, Egypt (e-mail: mserry@aucegypt.edu). [11-14]. The higher order modes of the TE11 mode (TE115, and
S. Sedky is with Physics Department, School of Sciences and Engineering, TE119) were excited in [11]; whereas the modes HE15 and
The American University in Cairo (AUC), New Cairo 11835, Egypt (e-mail:
sedky@aucegypt.edu)
HE12 were excited in [12], and [13-14], respectively.
A. Shamim is with Department of Electrical Engineering, King Abdullah The second category of DRAs uses either silicon [15-18] or
University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia GaAs [7] substrate that can carry the driving electronics. In
(e-mail: atif.shamim@kaust.edu.sa)
[15, 16], a DRA was fed by a coplanar waveguide (CPW) to
W. De Raedt is with IMEC, 3001 Leuven, Belgium (e-mail:
deraedt@imec.be). excite the HE11 mode. The proposed antenna in that work has
G. A. E. Vandenbosch is with ESAT/TELEMIC, KU Leuven, 3001 a gain of 3.2 dBi. However, it suffered from low radiation
Leuven, Belgium (e-mail: guy.vandenbosch@esat.kuleuven.be). efficiency (51%). In [17], the DRA was fed by a H-slot which
E. A. Soliman is with Physics Department, School of Sciences and
Engineering, The American University in Cairo (AUC), New Cairo, Egypt excited the TE11 mode. This antenna has an improved
(e-mail: esoliman@aucegypt.edu). radiation efficiency of 59% while its measured gain was 0.5

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 2

dBi. In [7], a Dielectric Resonator Antenna above Patch through the arms of the magnetic dipole in the same direction.
(DRAP) was introduced. The substrate of the antenna was The magnetic and electric field distributions of the DRA
GaAs. This antenna has a good impedance bandwidth designed at 60 GHz is shown in Fig. 2, as calculated by HFSS
(29.2%), whereas it has a gain of 3.6 dBi. For all these using finite element method. The magnetic field distribution
designs, the DRA itself was constructed from a material matches that of the HE11 mode of the DRA [21]. It is clear
different from the silicon or GaAs substrate material, which from Fig. 2 that the magnetic field along the DRA has the
requires hybrid integration. In [18], a high resistivity (si= 300 same direction as the magnetic current flowing through the
.cm) silicon was used as a material for both the substrate and feeding magnetic dipole, and the maximum magnetic field
the four DRAs arranged as 22 array. A number of occurs at the interface between the DRA and the substrate.
BenzoCycloButhene (BCB) films were deposited on top of the This ensures maximum coupling from the feeding dipole to
slotted ground plane at the back-side of the substrate to realize the desired DRA mode. On the other hand, the electric field at
the feeding microstrip network. The gain of this DRA array the top of the DRA is along the x-axis, normal to the magnetic
was about 11 dBi and its simulated radiation efficiency was field. It is worth noting that the coupling magnetic dipole is
62%. Such antenna represents a complete on-chip solution in not located at the center of the DRA in order to achieve best
which the DRA is micromachined from the same wafer matching with the feeding CPW line.
carrying the driving circuit.
In this paper, a novel cylindrical DRA suitable for on-chip
applications is introduced. The proposed DRA is
micromachined in silicon. A Coplanar Waveguide (CPW)
structure is used to feed the proposed DRA, instead of the
microstrip network used in [18]. Therefore, no BCB layers are
required, which leads to a simpler and less expensive design.
Unlike the CPW-fed DRAs presented in [8, 15-17], the CPW
feeding line of the proposed design is placed at the underside
of the substrate. This facilitates the construction of the DRA
and its feeding network using a single wafer. (a)
The paper is organized as follows: the structure of the new
antenna together with its radiation mechanism is introduced in
Section II. A parametric study that leads to the optimum
antenna dimensions is presented in Section III. The fabrication (b)
technology used to realize the proposed antenna is outlined in
Section IV. The optimum design is characterized both
theoretically and experimentally in Section V. The important
conclusions are stated in Section VI.

II. ANTENNA STRUCTURE AND RADIATION MECHANISM

The structure of the proposed DRA is shown in Fig. 1. The
cylindrical DRA, with radius R is defined in a high resistivity
silicon wafer by etching the silicon around the cylinder as
(c)
shown schematically in Fig. 1(b). The resistivity of the silicon
wafer is 2,000.cm, its dielectric loss tangent (tan ) = 0.003 Fig. 1. Structure of the proposed DRA: (a) 3D view, (b) side view, and (c)
[19], and its relative permittivity r= 11.9. The wafers used projected top view.

were 675 m thick. The height of the DRA is 400 m,

whereas the remaining thickness for the substrate is 275 m.
Such relatively thin substrate prevents the excitation of all
surface wave modes except for the fundamental TM0 mode
[20].The DRA is excited by a magnetic dipole with length L
and width W. This dipole terminates the feeding CPW line,
whose slot width and slots separation are 40 and 68 m,
respectively. The lines dimensions correspond to a
characteristic impedance of 50 .The feeding structure is (a) (b)
located at the back side of the silicon wafer, as shown in Fig.
1. The lateral spacing between the center of the feeding line
and that of the DRA is denoted by S.
The CPW feeding line is excited with its odd mode where
the magnetic currents flow in the two slots of the CPW in
opposite directions. This forces the magnetic currents to flow

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 3

TABLE I
SENSITIVITY OF THE RESONANCE FREQUENCY AND RETURN LOSS TO THE
PERTURBATION OF THE DRA DESIGN PARAMETERS
Resonance Frequency Return Loss
Antenna
Sensitivity Sensitivity
Parameter
(GHz/10% Perturbation) (dB/10% Perturbation)
R 3.29 6.95
L 0.59 12.29
W 0.18 3.49
S 0.56 14.49
(c)
TABLE II
Fig. 2. Field distribution of the DRA at 60 GHz: (a) Magnetic field along the OPTIMUM D IMENSIONS OF THE DRA
top face of the DRA, (b) Magnetic field along the central plane perpendicular
to the substrate and parallel to the magnetic dipole, and (c) Electric field along Antenna OPTIMUM Antenna
Optimum Value
the top face of the DRA. Parameter VALUE Parameter
L 1.068 mm W 265 m
R 1.18 mm S 1.2 mm
III. PARAMETRIC STUDY AND OPTIMUM DESIGN
This section shows the effect of varying the geometrical Unlike the resistive part of the input impedance, which is
design parameters of the DRA: R, L, W, and S, shown in Fig. affected mainly by L, its imaginary part is affected by both L
1, on its frequency response. The DRA dimensions determine and S, as shown in Fig. 4(b). As L increases, the antenna input
the resonant frequency. Table I shows the sensitivity of the impedance becomes more inductive due to the increased
resonance frequency and return loss of the DRA to 10% spacing between the short-circuit termination of the magnetic
perturbation (increase) of its design parameters around their dipole and the feeding point. On the other hand, as S increases
optimum values. The optimum values are listed in Table II. It the DRA becomes more capacitive due to the increase in the
is worth mentioning that in this study, the height of the DRA modal voltage as one move away from the center of the DRA.
was kept constant. Since, we are bounded by the wafer It is worth mentioning that the region of maximum current, i.e.
thickness (675 m), increasing the height of the DRA implies magnetic field, corresponds to minimum voltage, i.e. electric
decreasing the substrate thickness which affects the field, and vice versa. All geometrical parameters of the
mechanical stability of the antenna. On the other hand, proposed structure are simultaneously optimized using HFSS
decreasing the height of the DRA adversely affects the so as to obtain maximum gain and minimum return loss at 60
antennas radiation characteristics. The choice of H = 400 um GHz.
is considered a compromise between both factors. From Table
I, it can be observed that the most effective parameter to tune
the resonance frequency is the radius of the DRA, R. This is
expected as the DRA is the radiating element whose size must
control most the value of the resonance frequency. Fig. 3
shows the HFSS simulated return loss of the DRA versus
frequency for different values of the DRA radius, R. As R
increases the value of the resonance frequency decreases,
while good matching is maintained.
According to Table I, the length, L, and location, S, of the
feeding dipole play the major role in achieving good matching
between the DRA radiating mode and the feeding line. In
other words, the input impedance of the DRA is mostly
controlled via the two parameters L and S.
Fig. 4 shows the variation of the input impedance of the
DRA simulated using HFSS at 60 GHz versus L and S.
According to Fig. 4(a), as S increases, the input resistance
slightly increases due to the decrease and the increase of the Fig. 3: Return loss of the DRA versus frequency for different values of the
radius, R. The rest of parameters are kept constant at L = 1.068 mm, S = 1.2
DRA modal current and voltage, respectively, which are mm, and W = 265 m.
proportional to the modal magnetic and electric field,
respectively. The modal magnetic field is shown in Fig. 2.
This behavior is similar to the effect of varying the location of
the probe feeding a microstrip patch antenna. In a similar
manner to a microstrip patch electromagnetically excited by
an inductively coupled slot terminated by a short-circuit [22],
the input resistance of the proposed antenna is strongly
dependent on the length, L, of the feeding magnetic dipole. As
L increases, the real part of the input impedance decreases
significantly, as shown in Fig. 4(a).

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 4

minor effect on the antenna's characteristics, as discussed later

in section V. The unetched bottom side of the wafer acts as the
substrate for the antennas feeding network. The backside was
coated with a copper film having a thickness 5 m using an
electroplating process. Then, the backside Cu was patterned
using dry etching to define the feeding network. The
schematic diagram in Fig. 5 gives an overview of the
fabrication process.
The main advantage of the proposed process is that the
DRA is fabricated using a two-mask process on a single wafer.
This enhances the accuracy of the fabricated antenna since the
misalignment between the DRA and the feeding network is
minimized. In addition, this simple structure implies more
mechanical stability and less fabrication costs compared to
alternative mm-wave DRAs that require hybrid integration. It
is clear from the SEM images displayed in Fig. 6 that the
(a) fabricated DRA prototype has sharp vertical walls.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 5: Process flow for fabricating the proposed DRA: (a) start-up silicon
wafer, (b) DRIE from top-side, (c) copper electroplating at back-side, (d)
(b) copper patterning.

Fig. 4: Input impedance of the DRA at 60 GHz versus the feeding dipole
length (L) and spacing (S): (a) real part, and (b) imaginary part. The other two
parameters are kept constant at R = 1.18 mm, and W =265 m.

IV. FABRICATION
The structure of the proposed DRA is relatively simple and
can be fabricated using micromachining technology in three (a)
steps. Six inch double sided polished high-resistivity silicon
wafers (si 2,000 .cm and thickness = 675 m) were used
for fabrication. One side of this wafer was etched through a
depth of 400 m using a Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE)
process in order to remove the silicon around the DRA [23-25]
while maintaining vertical cylindrical sidewall. It is worth
mentioning that a number of DRA prototypes were fabricated
within the same wafer. Ideally, the silicon has to be removed
(b)
totally in between adjacent DRAs. However, this process
requires etching of huge amount of silicon. For fabrication Fig. 6: SEM photos of the fabricated DRA: (a) top side showing the DRA, and
simplicity, sufficient amount of silicon was etched away (b) bottom side showing the feeding CPW line terminated by the magnetic
dipole.
around the DRA, such that a minimum distance of 4 mm is
kept clear in all directions. This leaves silicon walls
surrounding the DRAs. The presence of these walls has a

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 5

V. THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL CHARACTERIATION frequency (59 GHz). The radiation efficiency of the fabricated
In this section, the measured electrical characteristics of the antenna can be calculated from the measured gain, and the
estimated directivity of the antenna. In our calculations, we
fabricated DRA are presented and compared with the
used the approximated formula of the directivity, D, which is
simulated results. For accurate comparison, the silicon walls
given by [27]:
surrounding the DRA were taken into consideration in the
32400
simulation. Fig. 7 shows the measured and simulated return D (1)
loss of the optimized DRA versus frequency. The simulations E H
of the optimized DRA were carried out using HFSS. The where E and H are the measured 3-dB beamwidths along
return loss curves show good agreement between simulations the E- and H- planes, respectively. At 60 GHz, the calculated
and measurements. The measured resonance frequency was 59 radiation efficiency is 79.35% compared to the simulated
GHz very close to the value determined by HFSS, which is efficiency of 92.04%.It is clear that the approximated
59.5 GHz. Measurements showed better matching and slightly directivity is a source of error. The alternative is to measure
wider bandwidth than simulations. This is mainly due to extra the whole radiation pattern in all directions and calculate the
losses that are not considered by the simulators. The measured directivity according to its definition. However, this is rather
10 dB impedance bandwidth was 2.23 GHz, which unpractical and would take a much longer measurement time.
corresponds to 3.78% at 59 GHz. Such bandwidth is Looking at Fig. 9(b), it can be seen that the radiation pattern
considered sufficient for a number of mm-wave wireless widens once more outside the 3-dB beamwidth which implies
systems. For WPAN applications where the bandwidth that the real directivity is less than the approximated one.
extends from 57 GHz to 64 GHz, a few more proposed DRAs
with different dimensions are required to cover the entire
passband.
The 3D radiation pattern of the proposed DRA is shown in
Fig. 8, as simulated using HFSS at 59.5 GHz. As shown, the
antenna is radiating mainly towards the boresight. The
simulated gain, directivity, and radiation efficiency are 8.27
dBi, 8.11 dBi, and 92.04%, respectively. The 15 dB back-
side radiation is attributed mainly to radiation from the
magnetic dipole etched within the ground plane.
Fig. 9 shows the measured and simulated co- and cross-
polar components of the far field at the corresponding
resonance frequency along the E- and H-planes. The detailed
measurement setup is presented in [26]. The H-plane is the
plane parallel to the magnetic dipole, while the plane Fig. 7: Measured and simulated return loss versus frequency for the optimized
DRA.
perpendicular to it is the E-plane. There is reasonable
agreement between simulations and measurements. The reason
for the observed discrepancy is the fact that during
measurements, the DRA structure is mounted within a large
ground plate which is part of the measurement equipment.
This alters the radiation patterns, mainly above 60. It is also
observed that around 10, there is a noticeable difference
between simulations and measurements since there is no
complete isolation between the probe positioner side and the
radiating side. Thus, reflection from the positioner gives rise Fig. 8: 3D radiation pattern of the DRA at its resonance frequency as
to this dip as it appears in one plane at one side only. simulated with HFSS.
Comparing the co- and cross- polarization components in the
E- and H- planes, it is clear that the proposed DRA enjoys a
high degree of polarization purity especially in the broadside
direction. The simulated and measured cross-polar levels in
the broadside direction are 42.25 dB and 15.00 dB,
respectively. The relatively higher measured cross-
polarization level is mainly due to unwanted reflections within
the measurement setup. The measured 3-dB beamwidth of the
proposed DRA is 45 and 114 in the E- and H- planes,
respectively.
Fig. 10 shows the simulated and measured gain versus
frequency. From the figure, it is clear that antenna has an (a) (b)
average gain of around 6.5 dBi along its working bandwidth.
Fig. 9: Measured and simulated radiation pattern of the DRA at its resonance
A maximum gain of 7 dBi was measured at the resonance frequency (____HFSS,- - - Measured):(a) co- and cross-polar components in E-

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 6

plane, (b) co- and cross-polar component in H-plane. [8] Y. Coulibaly, M. Nedil, L. Talbi, and T. A. Denidni, Design of a mm-
wave broadband CPW-fed stacked dielectric resonator antenna for
underground mining communication, IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas
Propag. Soc. (APSURSI), pp.1-4, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 2010.
[9] Y. Coulibaly, M. Nedil, L. Talbi, and T. A. Denidni, High gain
cylindrical dielectric resonator with superstrate for broadband
millimeter-wave underground mining communications, 14th Int. Symp.
Antenna Technol. Appl. Electromagnetics and the American
Electromagnetics Conf. (ANTEM-AMEREM), pp.1-4, July 2010.
[10] A. Agouzoul, M. Nedil, Y. Coulibaly, T. A. Denidni, I. Ben Mabrouk,
and L.Talbi, Design of a high gain hybrid dielectric resonator antenna
for millimeter-waves underground application, IEEE Antennas Propag.
Soc., pp.1688-1691, July 2011.
[11] Y.-M. Pan, K. W. Leung, and K.-M. Luk, Design of the millimeter-
wave rectangular dielectric resonator antenna using a higher-order
mode, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.59, no.8, pp.2780-2788,
Aug. 2011.
[12] A. Perron, T. A. Denidni, and A.-R. Sebak, High-gain hybrid dielectric
resonator antenna for millimeter-wave applications: design and
implementation, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.57, no.10,
pp.2882-2892, Oct. 2009.
Fig. 10: Simulated and measured gain versus frequency for the proposed DRA. [13] D. Guha, A. Banerjee, and Y. M. M. Antar, New radiating mode in a
cylindrical DRA to produce broadside high gain radiation, IEEE Int.
Symp. Antennas Propag. Soc. (APSURSI), pp.1-4, July 2010.
VI. CONCLUSION [14] D. Guha, A. Banerjee, C. Kumar, and Y. M. M. Antar, Higher order
mode excitation for high-gain broadside radiation from cylindrical
In this paper, a micromachined on-chip DRA with single dielectric resonator antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.60,
silicon wafer is designed, fabricated, and measured for the first no.1, pp.71-77, Jan. 2012.
time. A complete parametric study for the proposed antenna [15] P.V. Bijumon, A .P. Freundorfer, M. Sayer, and Y. M. M. Antar, On-
chip silicon integrated cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna for
has been presented. The new antenna has a number of millimeter wave applications, Int. Symp. Signals, Syst. and Electronics
appealing characteristics, such as: fabrication simplicity, high (ISSSE), pp.489-492, July 2007.
radiation efficiency, high gain, and low cross-polarization [16] P. V. Bijumon, Y. M. M. Antar, A. P. Freundorfer, and M. Sayer,
Dielectric resonator antenna on silicon substrate for system on-chip
level. In addition, the proposed antenna is suitable for applications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.56, no.11, pp.3404-
monolithic integration with the driving electronics. Such 3410, Nov. 2008.
feature has a high value in the millimeter-wave range because [17] M.-R. Nezhad-Ahmadi, M. Fakharzadeh, B. Biglarbegian, and S. Safavi-
the added parasitics due to hybrid integration may deteriorate Naeini, High-efficiency on-chip dielectric resonator antenna for mm-
wave transceivers, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.58, no.10,
the performance of such high-frequency systems. pp.3388-3392, Oct. 2010.
[18] J. Svedin, L.-G. Huss, D. Karlen, P. Enoksson, and C. Rusu, A
ACKNOWLEDGMENT micromachined 94 GHz dielectric resonator antenna for focal plane
array applications, IEEE/MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp. (IMS), pp.1375-
This publication is based on work supported by award 1378, June 2007.
number: UK-C0015 OUK made by King Abdullah University [19] M. N. Afsar, H. Chi, X. Li, Millimeter wave complex refractive index,
complex dielectric permittivity and loss tangent of high purity and
of Science and Technology (KAUST) and was co-funded by
compensated silicon, Conf. Precision electromagnetic Measurements,
the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO-V) of the pp. 238-239, June 1990.
Flemish government through the FWO project G.0897.10N. [20] M. Riaziat, R. Majidi-Ahy, and I-J. Feng, Propagation modes and
dispersion characteristics of coplanar waveguides, IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol.38, no.3, pp.245-251, 1990.
REFERENCES [21] D. Kajfezand, A. W. Glisson, and J. James, Computed modal field
[1] S. A. Long, M. McAllister, and L. Shen, The resonant cylindrical distributions for isolated dielectric resonators, IEEE Trans. Microw.
dielectric cavity antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.31, no.3, Theory, vol.32, no.12, pp.1609-1616, Dec. 1984.
pp.406-412, May 1983. [22] L. Giauffret, J.-M. Laheurte, and A. Papiernik, Study of various shapes
[2] K. W. Leung, K. M. Luk, K. Y. A. Lai, and D. Lin, Theory and of the coupling slot in CPW-fed microstrip antennas, IEEE Trans.
experiment of a coaxial probe fed hemispherical dielectric resonator Antennas Propag., vol.45, no.4, pp.642-647, April 1997.
antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.41, no.10, pp.13901398, [23] E. A. Soliman, S. Sedky, M. O. Sallam, S. Hassan, O. El Katteb, A. K.
Oct. 1993. S. Abdel Aziz, and M. Refaat, Novel MEMS dipole/monopole antenna
[3] R. A. Kranenburg and S. A. Long, Microstrip transmission line for wireless system operating at 77 GHz, Progress in Electromagnetics
excitation of dielectric resonator antennas, Electronics Lett., vol.24,
Research Symp. Online, vol.6, no.6, pp.547-550, July 2010.
no.18, pp.1156-1157, Sept. 1988.
[4] R. A. Kranenburg, S. A. Long, and J. T. Williams, Coplanar waveguide [24] E. A. Soliman, S. Hassan, O. El Katteb, M. O. Sallam, M. Serry, and S.
excitation of dielectric resonator antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas Sedky, 77-GHz MEMS brick-wall antenna fed by coupled microstrip
Propag., vol.39, no.1, pp.119-122, Jan. 1991. lines, IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas Propag. Soc. (APSURSI), pp.1-
[5] J. T. H. St. Martin, Y. M. M. Antar, A. A. Kishk, A. Ittipiboon, and M. 4, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 2010.
Cuhaci, Dielectric resonator antenna using aperture [25] M. O. Sallam, E. A .Soliman, and S. Sedky, Novel linearly and
coupling, Electronics Lett., vol.26, no.24, pp.2015-2016, Nov. 1990. circularly polarized 60 GHz MEMS antennas on low- and high-
[6] K.-W. Leung, Conformal strip excitation of dielectric resonator resistivity silicon, 5th European Conf. Antennas Propag. (EuCAP),
antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol.48, no.6, pp.961-967, June pp.1194-1198, Rome, Italy, April 2011.
2000. [26] K. Mohammadpour-Aghdam, S. Brebels, A. Enayati, R. Faraji-Dana, G.
[7] J. Oh, T. Baek, D. Shin, J. Rhee, and S. Nam, 60-GHz CPW-fed A. E. Vandenbosch, and W. De Raedt, RF probe influence study in
dielectric resonator-above-patch (DRAP) antenna for broadband WLAN millimeter-wave antenna pattern measurements, Int. J. of RF Microw.
applications using micromachining technology, Microw. Optical Comput.-Aided Eng., vol. 21, no. 4, pp.413-420, July 2011.
Technol. Lett., vol.49, no.8, pp.1859-1861, Aug. 2007.

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 7

[27] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory and Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Professor and principal investigator of IMPACT Lab. He was an invited
1997. researcher at the VTT Micro-modules Research Center (Oulu, Finland) in
2006. Dr. Shamim was the recipient of the best paper prize at the European
Mai O. Sallam(S13) was born in Cairo, Egypt, in Wireless Technology Conference in 2008. He was given the Ottawa Centre of
October 1986. She received her B.Sc. degree (with Research Innovation (OCRI) Researcher of the Year Award in 2008. His work
honors) in Electronics and Communications Engineering on Wireless Dosimeter won the ITAC SMC Award at Canadian
from Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt in 2008 and the Microelectronics Corporation TEXPO in 2007. He received the best student
M.Sc. degree in Physics in 2012 from the American paper finalist prize at IEEE APS conference in 2005. He also won numerous
University in Cairo, Egypt. She is currently working business related awards, including 1st prize in Canadas national business plan
towards her Ph.D. degree at both the American University competition and was selected for OCRI Entrepreneur of the year award in
in Cairo and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. 2010. He has authored/co-authored over 65 international publications and is
Since December 2008, she joined the Youssef Jameel an inventor on 8 patents. His research interests are in integrated on-chip
Science and Technology Research Center (YJ-STRC) at the American antennas, low power CMOS RFICs for system-on-chip (SoC) applications and
University in Cairo as a research assistant. Her research interests include advanced system-on-package (SoP) designs in multilayer LTCC, LCP, and
RFID tag antennas, micromachined on-chip antennas for millimeter wave paper substrates through screen and inkjet printing techniques. Dr. Shamim
applications, and plasmonics. serves on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and
Propagation.

Mohamed Serry was born in Cairo in 1975. He

received a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Ain Walter De Raedt received the M.Sc. degree in
Shams University (Egypt) in 1999; a M.Sc. in electrical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit
Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, in 1981. He subsequently
(Canada) in 2003; and a Ph.D. from the University of joined the Electronics, Systems, Automation and
Toronto (Canada) in 2007. In 2008, Serry joined the Technology (ESAT) Laboratory, where he was a
Professor Osamu Tabatas Group in the Department of Research Assistant involved directly with electron beam
Micro engineering, Kyoto University (Japan), as a JSPS technology. Since 1984, he has been with the
Scholar, and in 2009 he joined Professor Sherif Sedkys Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC),
Group at the Yousef Jameel Science and Technology Research Center at the Leuven, where he has been involved with research on
American University in Cairo as a postdoctoral fellow. Presently, Serry is an MICs and sub micrometer technologies for advanced high electron mobility
Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the transistor (HEMT) devices. From 1997, he joined the MCM group at IMEC in
American University in Cairo. He currently holds two patents, and has charge of the design, modeling and characterization activities for packaging.
authored and coauthored over thirty-five international publications. As a head of the RFCDM group at IMEC he was involved in many EU
research projects (3DTune, e-cubes, e-brains). In 2003 he received the IEEE
microwave prize with his team. He authored and co-authored more than 200
Sherif Sedky(M99) was born in Cairo (Egypt) in papers, several patents and book chapters in the field of microwave/mm wave
1969. He received the B.Sc. degree, with honors, in modeling, design and packaging. His current interests are centered around SiP
electronics engineering in 1992, and the M.Sc. degree (System in package) integration of sensors for body area network applications.
in engineering physics in 1995 both from Faculty of
Engineering, Cairo University, and the Ph.D. degree in
microelectronics in 1998 from the Katholieke Guy A. E. Vandenbosch(M92SM08F13) received
Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. In 1995 he joined the the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering
MEMS group of the Interuniversity Microelectronics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in
Center (IMEC) in Leuven (Belgium). During the 1985 and 1991, respectively. From 1991 to 1993, he held
academic year 1999-2000, he was a postdoctoral a postdoctoral research position at the KU Leuven. Since
fellow at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and a visiting professor at the 1993, he has been a Lecturer, and since 2005, a Full
same university during Summer 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and Professor at this university. His research interests are in
2008. In 2002 he was a visiting researcher at the University of California, the area of electromagnetic theory, computational
Berkeley. In February 2004 he has been promoted to associate professor and electromagnetics, antennas and radiation,
to full professor in 2008. He served as the director of Yousef Jameel Science electromagnetic compatibility, nano-electromagnetics, and bio-
and Technology Research Center, and associate dean for graduate studies and electromagnetics. Guy Vandenbosch has been a member of the "Management
research at The American University in Cairo. In 2012 has was appointed as Committees'' of the consecutive European COST actions on antennas since
the founding provost of Zewail University of Science and Technology and the 1993, where he is leading the working group on modeling and software for
Director of the Nanotechnology Center at Zewail City. Currently he is the antennas. Within the ACE Network of Excellence of the EU (2004-2007), he
Provost of The American University in Cairo. He holds thirteen patents and was a member of the Executive Board and coordinated the activity on the
authored and coauthored over one hundred international publications and a creation of a European antenna software platform. In the period 1999-2004, he
book chapter. He is the author of the book titled: Post-processing techniques was vice-chairman, and in the period 2005-2009 secretary of the IEEE
for integrated MEMS. He established a MEMS fabrication facility at The Benelux Chapter on Antennas en Propagation. Currently he holds the position
Science and Technology Research Center at The American University in of chairman of this Chapter.
Cairo. He is a recipient of the 2007 Excellence in research and creative
endeavors award. He is also a recipient of the Egyptian prestigious national
award in advanced technological sciences in 2002, and the graduate studies Ezzeldin A. Soliman(S97M99SM12) was born in
award from Cairo University in 1996. He served on the scientific committees Cairo, Egypt, in May 1970. He received his B.Sc.
of several international conferences. degree (distinction with honors) in Electronics and
Communications Engineering and his M.Sc. degree in
Engineering Physics both from Cairo University,
Atif Shamim(S03M09SM13) received his Egypt, in June 1992 and Nov. 1995, respectively. He
M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering at received his Ph.D. degree (summa cum laude) in
Carleton University, Canada in 2004 and 2009 Electrical Engineering from the Katholieke
respectively. He was an NSERC Alexander Graham Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) jointly with the Interuniversity
Bell Graduate scholar at Carleton University from MicroElectronics Center (IMEC), Belgium, in Feb. 2000. Dr. Soliman held
2007 till 2009 and an NSERC postdoctoral Fellow the following positions: Assistant Professor at Cairo University (2000-2005),
from 2009-2010at Royal Military College Canada and Visiting Scholar at McMaster University, Canada (2002-2003), Associate
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Professor at King AbdulAziz University, KSA (2005-2007). From 2007 to
(KAUST), KSA. In August 2010, he joined the 2012, he has been an Associate Professor at the American University in Cairo
Electrical Engineering Program at KAUST, where he is currently an Assistant (AUC), Egypt. Since 2013, he is a Full Professor at the AUC. He has been a

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TAP.2015.2439694, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
AP1310-1380 8

Visiting Professor at both IMEC and KU Leuven during Spring 2002,

Summer 2006, Winter 2008, Summer 2008-2013. Dr. Soliman was invited as
Visiting Professor at McMaster University, Canada, in Fall 2014. His research
interests include integrated antennas, computational electromagnetics, and
plasmonics. He holds four patents, published over 60 international journal
papers, in addition to more than 40 international conference publications. Dr.
Soliman is the founder of the Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Laboratory at
Yousef Jameel Science and Technology Research Center of the AUC. He is
the recipient of the Outstanding Scholarly Research offered by School of
Sciences and Engineering at the AUC on 2010, and the Excellence in
Research and Creative Endeavors Award offered by the AUC on 2011.

0018-926X (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.