Design of silicon integrated lens antenna for 60 GHz indoor wireless communications

This work presents a design of a silicon integrated lens antenna (ILA) for indoor wireless communications in the 60 GHz frequency band. The designed ILA consists of an extended hemispherical silicon lens with a planar radiator integrated at the lens back surface. ILA parameters were defined using simplified analytical analysis and further proved by full electromagnetic simulations. Two silicon ILAs with the diameters of 12 mm and 24 mm were fabricated for experimental measurements. Measurement results have shown good agreement with the simulations. The designed lens antennas have approximately 17.5 dBi and 23.5 dBi maximum directivities (when the radiator is in the center of the lens back surface). The ±55° angle coverage at the 6 dB directivity degradation level is achieved when the radiator is displaced relatively to the lens axis. It is concluded that the designed ILAs have sufficient characteristics to be used in the future 60 GHz indoor communication systems.