Performance enhancement of 60 GHz CMOS band pass filter employing oxide height virtual increase

A high selectivity compact size coupled open-loop resonator (OLR-) band pass filter (BPF) in 0.18 µm TSMC Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) with low insertion (IL) is presented in this manuscript. First, shape optimization and folding are used to guarantee compact size. Then, high performance of the proposed BPF is obtained by virtually increasing the height of the oxide between the OLR’s traces and their ground plane. This virtual increase in the oxide height is realized by etching large slot areas below each of the OLRs. Consequently, the traces are characterized by wider width which in return exhibit lower attenuation constant and hence lower IL. The simulated and measured responses have a very good agreement. The fabricated BPF shows an IL of 3.5 dB at 59 GHz with a return loss of 15 dB and a fractional bandwidth of 16.5%. The fabricated chip has an area of 378 × 430 µm ² including the measurements pads.