Recent developments in membrane supported millimeter wave circuits

This paper outlines the main developments in membrane-supported circuits based on silicon as well as on GaAs micromachining, achieved by the authors and their teams in the last years. Most of the results are obtained in the frame of the European Projects "MEMSWAVE", "AMICOM", "IMPACT", and in the frame of bilateral cooperation agreements between IMT Bucharest and FORTH Heraklion, LAAS Toulouse, ITC Trento, CNR and Tor Vergata Univ. Rome. Distinct chapters are dedicated to silicon based micromachined filters and micromachined antennae. New technological developments for membrane supported Yagi-Uda antennae are described. Also, new membrane supported filters structures, monolithically integrated receiver modules as well as quasi-optical mixer structures, based on GaAs micromachining, are presented.