Narrow Band Ridge Waveguide-to-Microstrip Transition for Low Noise Amplifier at Ku-BandZahid Yaqoob Malik, Abdul Mueed, Muhammad Imran NawazCentre for Wireless CommunicationNational Engineering and Scientific CommisionAbstract- A compact Ku-band waveguide-to-microstrip transition integrated with low noise amplifier is designed. It acts as an interconnect between waveguide antenna and RF receiver modules. The transition design consists of standard waveguide WR62, a cavity for the low noise amplifier and a solid transformer section in the form of a staircase called ridge. The ridge is fixed in the bottom wall of a waveguide with the help of a screw. The centre conductor of a coaxial connector is brought near this transformer but doesn’t touch the transformer; these elements together with the back of the staircase and an adjacent portion of the bottom wall define a magnetic field coupling loop. This design methodology gives us narrow bandwidth of 500MHz at Ku-band and hence eliminates the need for a filter in receiver section for specific applications.I.I NTRODUCTIONLower loss of waveguide at higher frequencies above X band is advantageous as compared to the coaxial line. At higher frequencies, waveguide-to-microstrip transitions replace waveguide to coaxial transitions to act as interconnects between modules and antennas. These transitions can be also be made to operate at Millimeter wave bands. Waveguide is made from a single conductor which usually propagates a dominant TE mode, having a cutoff frequency below which the waveguide is highly attenuative.Most of the transitions are designed to operate within the frequency band of dominant mode propagation only. As compared with coaxial line, waveguide modes have impedance characteristics that tend to make transition design more challenging. The impedance of each of waveguide modes changes with frequency. In addition, the impedances of standard waveguides are much greater than 50 ohms, typically a few hundred ohms. Consequently, the bandwidth for most waveguide-to- microstrip transitions rarely reaches the full dominant mode bandwidth [1].Microstrip-to-waveguide transitions have been widely used in testing and evaluating millimeter-wave hybrid and monolithic integrated circuits and combining integrated circuits with waveguide components [2]. The present transition relates to a ridge waveguide-to-microstrip line transition for an amplifier which uses a field effect transistor (FET) or the like. Generally, a waveguide-to-coaxial line transition or a waveguide-to-microstrip line transition is employed to supply an FET with a microwave signal coming in through antenna [5]. The transition apparatus may off-course utilize the magnetic field associated with the electromagnetic wave energy propagating in the waveguide. If the inner conductor of the coaxial transmission line is utilized as a probe to couple to this magnetic field, then the longitudinal axis of the coaxial line may be aligned with the propagating axis of the waveguide. With such an orientation of axes, the overall structure requires less space than those depending upon electric field coupling [6].This transition provides a simplified and compact structure for waveguide-to-coaxial transmission line. This transition consists of three main subassemblies. The first part is a standard Ku-band waveguide WR62. The second part is impedance transforming section which is mounted in the WR62 waveguide with the help of a screw, the third part is the low noise amplifier cavity having the centre pin of coaxial transmission line. This pin is brought close to the staircase transformer to a side with the waveguide on one end and other end is connected to the alumina substrate used for the low noise amplifier in the cavity. Rest of the paper is organized as follows. The design of the ridge is discussed in section II. Section III discusses simulation work. In section IV, manufacturing details and test results are presented. The work is concluded in section V.II.D ESIGN OF THE R IDGEImpedance Matching Section is designed to match the higher impedance of a waveguide section to a coaxial line, the general practice is to decrease the narrow dimension of the waveguide, that is, the distance between the broadwalls of a rectangular waveguide in a series of steps so as to arrive at an internal dimension that achieves an acceptable impedance match with a satisfactory voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR). The impedance matching transformer (ridge) consists of five quarter wave sections as shown in figure 1. These sections take the form of a staircase of individual steps. The heights of the steps which are generally unequal are chosen in accordance with a set of numerical coefficients referred to as Techbyscheff coefficients [3]. The distance AB between the cavity wall and the end face of the first step is between 0.01λ and 0.1 λLNA cavity is approximately one quarter of a wavelength. The width of each step is generally between one third and onethe first transformer section. This impedance level is dependentFig.1. Ridge Designupon the impedance of the particular coaxial line (50 ohm in this case) and the particular waveguide (WR62 in our case). We have finally adjusted all the above mentioned critical distances using HFSS software.III.S IMULATION OF T RANSITIONWe have simulated the above said transition in the HFSS and after some optimization the transition met the designed specifications, at this stage we freeze the dimensions and generated a physical model. The HFSS model of the transition is shown in figure2 and the final dimensions of the transformer are depicted in figure 3.The results of the simulation are given below:Fig.2. HFSS ModelFig.3. Ridge DesignFig.4. Input Return LossFig.5. Output Return LossFig.6. Insertion loss of the TransitionThe figure 7 shows the model of the complete ridge waveguide-to-microstrip transition with LNA cavity. The details of the LNA design are beyond the scope of this paper and hence will not be discussed.Fig.7. CAD Model of the Ridge Waveguide-to-Microstrip Line Transition with Low Noise amplifier cavityIV. M ANUFACTURING & T EST R ESULTSThe above mentioned Ridge Waveguide-to-Microstrip Line Transition with Low Noise amplifier cavity is manufactured in parts and finally integrated using silver conductive epoxy (aluminum or laser welding can also be used). The pin is connected to the Alumina with 1 mil gold bonding wire in order to connect it with amplifier circuit in the LNA cavity. The pictures of individual three parts and integrated assembly is presented below:Fig.8. Integrated AssemblyFig.9. Ridge TransformerFig.10. Waveguide FlangeFig.11. WaveguideThe manufactured transition Ridge Waveguide-to-Microstrip Line Transition with Low Noise amplifier cavity was tested in two steps. In the first step LNA cavity was filled with transmission line and VSWR and Insertion loss was measured using Vector Network Analyzer. The values of dimensions CD, AB and HT are adjusted real-time for best results. The measured results are given below:Fig.12.Input Return LossFig.13.Output Return LossFig.14.Insertion LossThe input and output return losses are found to be 10dB and 14dB respectively in desired 500MHz bandwidth. Also the insertion loss is found to be 2.2dB. Then low noise amplifier was built inside the cavity and measured with the help of vector network analyzer and noise figure meter the results were satisfactory and are presented below:Fig.15.Input Return Loss Fig.16.Output Return LossFig.17. Gain S21Fig.18. Isolation S12TABLE IP ERFORMANE OF LNA WITH W AVEGUIDE-TO-M ICROSTRIPT RANSITIONV.C ONCLUSIONSA Narrow Band Ridge Waveguide-to-Microstrip Line Transition for Low Noise Amplifier at Ku Band is designedand manufactured. The structure is very compact, and it createsa hermetic seal without any additional piece in a waveguide.The transition is compatible with MMIC technology, because itcan be integrated easily in the bottom of MMIC housing. The transition is ideally suited for future mm-wave applications using alumina for MMIC substrate and circuitry housing. It canbe used without an additional filter needed in front of LNA inthe receivers.A CKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe would like to thank Mr. Zahir Hussain Babar for his technical support. We would also like to thank Mr. Hassan Mansoor of Mechanical Design Realm for manufacturing facilities and suggestions.R EFERENCES[1] Eric Holzman, “Essentials of RF and MicrowaveGrouding” Artech House Boston/London.[2] Hui-wen Yao, Amr Abdelmonem, Ji-Fuh Liang andKawthar A. Zaki, “A Full Wave Analysis of Microstrip-To- Waveguide Transitions”, 1994 IEEE MTT-S Digest. [3] Hui-wen Yao, Amr Abdelmonem, Ji-Fuh Liang andKawthar A. Zaki, “Analysis and Design of Microstrip-To- Waveguide Transitions”, IEEE TRANSACTIONSON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES,VOL.42,NO.12,DECEMBER 1994.[4] Paul Wade, “Rectangular Waveguide to Coax TransitionDesign”.[5] EUROPEAN Patent Application, Publication number0074613.[6] United States patent, Patent Number 3737812.。