Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit
An MMIC (from Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit ) is a special class of integrated components in high-frequency technology . Here, all active and passive components on a semiconductor - substrate (. Typ thickness 100 microns) realized. The miniaturization allows circuits to in the range of millimeter waves .
With hybrid MIC technology , only some of the components can be implemented on the substrate (mostly ceramic substrate). The rest has to be equipped and has correspondingly poorer high-frequency properties due to the connecting cables.
Components
Resistors are implemented using thin-film technology or doped semiconductor material with ohmic contact . Capacitors consist of superimposed metal surfaces with silicon nitride as a dielectric . Inductors and transformers are created from spiral conductor tracks.
The conductor track is routed as a stripline and enables the use of line transformation and arrangements of coupled lines according to line theory . The typical width of a 50 Ω line is 70 µm, the thickness of a human hair .
In addition, via holes (VIA) is possible and so-called air bridges for conductor crossings.
The main active components include Schottky diodes , IMPATT diodes , capacitance diodes , metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors , high-electron-mobility transistors and heterojunction bipolar transistors .
Advantages and disadvantages
- Cheap production in large numbers
- Small size
- Reproducible, consistent results
- Big bandwidth
- Long development cycles
literature
- Denis J. Connolly, Kul B. Bhasin, Robert R. Romanofsky: Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) Technology for Space Communications Applications. In: NASA Technical Memorandum . 100 187 IAF-87-491 ( PDF ).
Web links
- GaAs MMIC Reliability Assurance Guideline for Space Applications (NASA)
- MMIC technology (Christian Wolff)
- Microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) (electronics-manufacturers.com)