SST: Integrated Manufacturing for Millimeterwave Sensing Systems

Intellectual Merit: Integrated manufacturing is a critical issue in design and manufacturing of next generation, millimeterwave-sensing systems because the current system is bulky and expensive. The University of California at Berkeley and the University Texas at Arlington jointly propose to develop low-cost and integrated manufacturing processes for miniaturized millimeterwave systems for sensing, imaging and communication applications. Possible impact includes vision goggles that can assist firefighters to see through smoke, mobile radars that can enhance driving safety in foggy/rainy weather, and satellite uplink/downlink communication systems. The first motivation of the project came from the cost and size impact of a typical radar system where individual metallic components such as waveguides, antennas, and couplers are fabricated individually and assembled manually. We propose to develop a low-cost, integrated front-end manufacturing process utilizing the existing millimeterwave device concepts with new approaches from micromachining processes, including plastic molding and electroplating to build future generations of low-cost, portable millimeterwave systems. The second motivation came from the technology impact of millimeterwave systems that have unique wavelength for all-weather remote sensing capabilities. The proposed overall integrated system architecture has three physical layers: antenna layer, transmission line layer and circuit layer for 10-110GHz range sensing applications with integrated front-end structures, RF MEMS components and control circuitry.
Leveraging from our core competencies in MEMS fabrication and millimeterwave devices, we set the goal of this project as to develop the integrated manufacturing processes and system architectures for miniaturized millimeterwave sensing systems. Preliminary results show that plastically molded, miniaturized waveguides and antenna array can be fabricated based on the proposed micro plastic manufacturing modules and that phase shifters and beam steering applications has been demonstrated on patch antenna arrays based on a PCB technology.
Broader Impacts: Our strategy for disseminating the proposed manufacturing process of this project will be using two critical existing infrastructures. First, we will open our facility for other organizations, based on the well-established procedures as defined in the Berkeley Microfabrication Laboratory Affiliates (BMLA). Second, we will open our process based on the existing infrastructure of Berkeley Microfabrication Laboratory and MEMS Exchange which provides various microfabrication process services by working with various facilities, including the Berkeley Microfabrication Laboratory. In the area of education and outreach, the PIs plan to offer summer projects for the SUPERB (Summer Undergraduate Program in Engineering Research at UC-Berkeley) program at UC-Berkeley. The program is targeted to students of color, first-generation college students, educationally disadvantaged students, or students from historical minority institutions and offers outstanding underrepresented engineering students the opportunity to gain research experience by participating in research projects with engineering faculty and graduate students.
At the University of Arlington, we will promote the project in the INSERT (Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research and Teaching) program and the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program sponsored by The National Science Foundation since 1996 and a Space Grant Research Program sponsored by NASA. Moreover, the PIs intend to use the research experiences developed in this project as part of the teaching materials in both the undergraduate level course, "Introduction to MEMS," and the graduate level course, "MEMS" to advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training and learning. In the area of "enhance infrastructure for research and education," the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC), an NSF/industry/University collaborative research center, of which Prof. Lin is the co-director, has been the best place to identify and establish collaborations between various disciplines and institutions, with more than 30 members form MEMS and nanotechnology industries. We have gained strong support and have been discussing possible collaborations with our industrial members for this project.