Integrated millimeter-wave on-chip antenna design employing artificial magnetic conductor

The design of millimeter-wave on-chip antenna has been plagued by the ground image current induced by the lossy substrate and the presence of ground plane below the chip. With the existence of this image current, it results in poor radiation property and impedance bandwidth. In this paper, a novel method that integrates the artificial magnetic conductor and a wideband slot antenna design is introduced. Two designs are implemented in mainstream CMOS technology. A gain of 2 dBi at 60 GHz and an impedance bandwidth of more than 126% have been obtained for the first time in standard CMOS.