Equipment for On-Wafer Testing at Frequencies Up to 220 GHz

A suite of electronic test equipment has been developed for use in the measurement of key electrical characteristics of advanced, high-speed integrated circuits for communications, radar, digital networks, imaging systems, and other applications. More specifically, the test equipment is designed to enable the determination of noise figures and of scattering parameters (commonly denoted "S" parameters) at frequencies up to 220 GHz. The equipment includes (1) test sets that are basically extended versions of commercial network analyzers that, heretofore, have been functional up to 110 GHz; (2) recently developed millimeter-wavelength-signal probes that make it possible to take accurate on-wafer measurements; and (3) an amplifier-based solid-state noise source.