Facilities
RF, Microwave and Millimetre Wave Lab (mmiRF) has infrastructure for the design, ensemble, manufacturing and characterisation of high-frequency circuits and systems. Offered services are:
Prototyping of planar, hybrid circuits and 3D components
The mmiRF Lab has infrastructure for manufacturing prototypes at RF and microwave frequencies, and its technical staff is trained for its optimal use.
- PCB prototyping system. It consists of an LPKF Protomat S63 (prototyping machine) and LPKF ProtoPlace (semi-automatic pick & place system). Circuit boards can be fabricated with this mailing machine, the components can be accurately located, the samples can be cured in the curing oven if required, etc. In summary, the prototyping capability of circuits over rigid or semi-rigid substrates up to 25 GHz is offered.
- Manual Wire Bonding Station K&S-Model 4526. This instrument is the perfect assistant for manual gold-wire welding.
- PCB Inspection Microscope Lynx VS8. This instrument allows mounting and inspection of circuits and facilitates component assembling.
- Injection printer FILM Dimatix Materials Printer DMP-2850 allows the use of inks with different properties and performances.
- 3D Ultimaker printer builds samples using plastic wire deposition.
Devices, circuit measurement and characterization
Measurement capabilities of mmiRF Lab reach up to 67 GHz and include, as its main instruments, a 4-port Nonlinear Vector Network Analyser (NVNA), a vector signal generator, a spectrum analyser and a high-performance oscilloscope. All the instruments include remote access interface.
- Keysight PNA-X Network Analyser. N5247A, 10 MHz -67 GHz. It is a nonlinear vector network analyser capable of measuring signals in time and/or frequency domain. It includes two synchronized sources and 4 coaxial ports that facilitate the quick characterization of multiport devices.
- Cascade Microtech On-wafer Probe Station. This station allows the on-wafer measure of integrated circuits. It includes four positioners (N-S and E-W).
- PSG Vector Signal Generator. E8267D 250KHz-44GHz. This generator can provide modulated signals, with output power up to 20 dBm and 10 MHz modulation bandwidth.
- 54845A Infiniium Oscilloscope: 4 channels, up to 1.5 GHz and 8 GSa/s. It is a high-performance oscilloscope to get precise wave-forms captions.
Anechoic Chamber
Our anechoic chamber is ready to perform antenna measurements up to 120 GHz. Radiation pattern and directivity measurements.
- Horn Antennas
- Metasurfaces
- Transmitarrays
- Reflectarrays
- Leaky-Wave Antennas
- Arrays printed planar structures
- Patch Antennas
- Others
Materials Characterization
Customised test solutions for electromagnetic characterization of materials like permittivity, permeability and/or conductivity. Our research laboratory has two materials characterization facilities.
Analysis, simulation and design service
The mmiRF Lab crew has a wide experience using circuit analysis and design (CAD) tools and using 2D-3D high frequency electromagnetic (EM) simulation software. These software tools can be used for designing and simulating high-frequency electronic products for next-generation communication systems such as antennas, RF or microwave active and/or passive components, printed circuit boards, etc. These tools support add reliability (and viability) to prototype design.
- AWR Design Environment.
- Keysight Advanced Design System (ADS).
- HFFS Antenna Design & Modelling Software.
- CST Studio Suite.