Patent Application
20220320698
This application claims the benefit of priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 202110351310.8 filed on Mar. 31, 2021, the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.
The present disclosure relates to the field of communication technologies, and particularly relates to a phase shifter, a method for fabricating a phase shifter, and an antenna.
A Phase shifter is a device capable of adjusting a phase of a wave. The phase shifter has wide application in the fields of radars, missile attitude control, accelerators, communication, instruments, even music and the like. The conventional phase shifter is mainly implemented by using a switch made of a ferrite material, a PIN diode or a field effect transistor (FET), but the large-scale application of the conventional phase shifter is limited due to its complex process, high fabricating cost, large volume and the like.
In an aspect, the present disclosure provides a phase shifter including a substrate, first and second transmission lines spaced apart from each other on the substrate, and at least one phase control element on the substrate, wherein
each of the at least one phase control element includes a transmission line extension portion and a membrane bridge, and the transmission line extension portion is on the substrate, is between the first transmission line and the second transmission line, and is electrically coupled to the first transmission line;
the membrane bridge is on a side of the transmission line extension portion distal to the substrate, a portion of the membrane bridge is opposite to and spaced apart from the transmission line extension portion, and the membrane bridge is electrically coupled to the second transmission line; and
the membrane bridge is configured to move the portion of the membrane bridge in response to the first and second transmission lines being applied with different voltages, so as to change a distance of the portion of the membrane bridge from the transmission line extension portion.
In an embodiment, the membrane bridge includes a horizontal portion and a first support portion,
the horizontal portion is on the side of the transmission line extension portion distal to the substrate and is opposite to the transmission line extension portion; and
the first support portion is between the horizontal portion and the second transmission line, and electrically couples one end of the horizontal portion to the second transmission line.
In an embodiment, the other end of the horizontal portion is a free end configured to move in response to the first and second transmission lines being applied with different voltages, so as to change the distance from the other end of the horizontal portion to the transmission line extension portion.
In an embodiment, the transmission line extension portion, the second transmission line and the membrane bridge define a “T” shaped empty space when viewed in a cross-sectional view.
In an embodiment, the phase shifter further includes an insulating layer on the transmission line extension portion and on the side of the transmission line extension portion distal to the substrate,
wherein the insulating layer is configured to prevent the other end of the horizontal portion of the membrane bridge from electrically communicating with the transmission line extension portion when moving in a direction approaching the transmission line extension portion.
In an embodiment, the membrane bridge further includes a second support portion and an insulating layer,
the insulating layer is on the transmission line extension portion and is on the side of the transmission line extension portion distal to the substrate; and
the horizontal portion is configured to bend in a direction approaching the transmission line extension portion in response to the first and second transmission lines being applied with different voltages.
In an embodiment, the transmission line extension portion, the second transmission line, and the membrane bridge define an “L” shaped empty space when viewed in a cross-sectional view.
In an embodiment, the transmission line extension portion is in a same layer as the first transmission line.
In an embodiment, the transmission line extension portion and the first transmission line are formed as a single piece.
In an embodiment, at least one hollow portion is provided in the membrane bridge, and the at least one hollow portion penetrates through the membrane bridge in a direction perpendicular to a plane in which the substrate is located.
In an embodiment, the at least one hollow portion penetrates through the horizontal portion in the direction perpendicular to the plane in which the substrate is located.
In an embodiment, the phase shifter further includes first and second bias wires each disposed on the substrate and electrically coupled to the first and second transmission lines, respectively, wherein
the first and second bias wires are configured to apply different voltages to the first and second transmission lines, respectively.
In another aspect, the present disclosure further provides a method for fabricating the phase shifter described above, and the method includes:
forming, on the substrate, the first transmission line and the second transmission line spaced apart from each other and a transmission line extension portion of the at least one phase control element;
forming a sacrificial layer on the substrate having the first transmission line, the second transmission line, and the transmission line extension portion thereon, the sacrificial layer being configured to support the membrane bridge of the at least one phase control element in forming the membrane bridge;
forming the membrane bridge on the substrate having the sacrificial layer thereon, the membrane bridge being on a side of the sacrificial layer distal to the substrate; and
stripping the sacrificial layer.
In an embodiment, after the forming of the first transmission line and the second transmission line spaced apart from each other and the transmission line extension portion of the at least one phase control element, on the substrate, and before the forming of the sacrificial layer on the substrate having the first transmission line, the second transmission line, and the transmission line extension portion thereon, the method further includes:
forming an insulating layer on the transmission line extension portion and on the side of the transmission line extension portion distal to the substrate, the insulating layer being configured to prevent the portion of the membrane bridge from electrically communicating with the transmission line extension portion when moving in a direction approaching the transmission line extension portion.
In an embodiment, after the forming of the membrane bridge on the substrate having the sacrificial layer thereon and before the stripping of the sacrificial layer, the method further includes:
forming at least one hollow portion in the membrane bridge, the at least one hollow portion penetrating through the membrane bridge in a direction perpendicular to a plane in which the substrate is located
In another aspect, the present disclosure further provides an antenna including the phase shifter described above.
In order to make those skilled in the art better understand the technical solution of the present disclosure, a phase shifter, a method for fabricating a phase shifter, and an antenna according to the present disclosure are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
In the related art, a liquid crystal phase shifter is proposed, the liquid crystal phase shifter, although it has a low cost, cannot be applied to scenes having high speed requirements, such as 5G MIMO and the like, due to the following disadvantages of the liquid crystal phase shifter: the operating principle of the liquid crystal phase shifter is that the dielectric constant between the capacitor plates is changed by the deflection of liquid crystal under the control of voltage, so as to change the capacitance, and in this way, not only the change range of the capacitance is small, but also the response time of the phase shifter is necessarily long (generally more than 10 ms) due to the deflection of liquid crystal molecules. The liquid crystal itself has a high dielectric loss, resulting in a high loss of the phase shifter.
Referring to
By switching between applying different voltages and not applying voltages to the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2, a position at which the portion of the membrane bridge 32 is located may be switched between the initial position and a position closer to the transmission line extension portion than the initial position, so that the distance between the membrane bridge 32 and the transmission line extension portion 31 as two capacitor plates can be changed (the capacitor region is shown as region “A” in
The phase shifter according to the embodiment is, for example, a differential phase shifter.
The membrane bridge 32 has an elasticity to enable the position at which the portion of the membrane bridge 32 is located to be switched between the initial position and another position closer to the transmission line extension portion than the initial position by elastic deformation while maintaining electrical connection between the membrane bridge 32 and the second transmission line 2. The membrane bridge 32 is made of a material having a low dielectric loss, such as copper, gold, silver, aluminum, or the like.
In an embodiment, the first transmission line 1, the second transmission line 2 and the transmission line extension portion 31 may be made of a material having a low dielectric loss, such as copper, gold, silver, aluminum, etc.
In practical applications, the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2 may be applied with different voltages (e.g., bias voltages) by a control unit. For example, the first transmission line 1 is continuously applied with a voltage, for example, of 0 V. In this case, the position at which the portion of the membrane bridge 32 is located may be switched between the initial position and the position closer to the transmission line extension portion than the initial position by selectively applying or not applying a voltage (greater than 0 V) to the second transmission line 2. It should be noted that, in the present embodiment, both the number of the transmission line extension portion 31 and the number of the membrane bridge 32 included in each phase control element 3 are one, but the embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited thereto. In practical applications, the number of the transmission line extension portion 31 and the number of the membrane bridge 32 included in each phase control element 3 may be in plural, and in this case, the number of transmission line extension portion 31 and the number of the membrane bridge 32 included in different phase control elements 3 may be the same or different, and the voltages applied to different phase control elements 3 may be individually controlled.
In the present embodiment, as shown in
The support portion 322 is coupled between one end (i.e., the right end in
In the present embodiment, the phase shifter may further include an insulating layer 4, the insulating layer 4 is disposed on the transmission line extension portion 31 and on a side of the transmission line extension portion distal to the substrate 10 to prevent the horizontal portion 321 of the membrane bridge 32 from electrically communicating with the transmission line extension portion 31 when the horizontal portion 321 moves in a direction approaching the transmission line extension portion 31. The insulating layer 4 is made of an insulating material such as SiOx, SiNx, or Al2O3.
In the present embodiment, the phase shifter may further include a first bias wire 61 and a second bias wire 62, and the first bias wire 61 and the second bias wire 62 are disposed on the substrate 10 and electrically coupled to the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2, respectively, so as to apply different voltages to the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2 through the first bias wire 61 and the second bias wire 62, respectively. The first bias wire 61 and the second bias wire 62 are electrically coupled to the control unit described above, for example. The first bias wire 61 and the second bias wire 62 may be made of a high resistivity material such as ITO or Mo.
In the present embodiment, as shown in
Referring to
In an embodiment, the membrane bridge 33 includes a horizontal portion 331, a first support portion 332, and a second support portion 333; also, the phase shifter further includes an insulating layer 4. In an embodiment, the horizontal portion 331 is on a side of the transmission line extension portion 31 distal to the substrate 10, and is opposite to the transmission line extension portion 31; the insulating layer 4 is disposed on the transmission line extension portion 31 and on a side of the transmission line extension portion 31 distal to the substrate 10; the first support portion 332 is coupled between one end of the horizontal portion 331 and the insulating layer 4; the second support portion 333 is coupled between the other end of the horizontal portion 331 and the second transmission line 2, and electrically conducts the horizontal portion 331 and the second transmission line 2. The first and second support portions 332 and 333 are configured to keep the horizontal portion 331 at a distance from the transmission line extension portion 31, and the second support portion 333 is configured to electrically conduct the horizontal portion 331 with the second transmission line 2. In other words, the transmission line extension portion, the second transmission line and the membrane bridge define an “L” shaped empty space when viewed in a cross-sectional view, as shown in
The horizontal portion 331 is configured to be bent in a direction approaching the transmission line extension portion 31 when the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2 are applied with different voltages. As shown in
The membrane bridge 33 has an elasticity to enable a position at which the horizontal portion 331 is located to be switched between an initial position and a position closer to the transmission line extension portion than the initial position by elastic deformation while maintaining electrical connection between the membrane bridge 33 and the second transmission line 2. The membrane bridge 33 is made of a material having a low dielectric loss, such as copper, gold, silver, aluminum, or the like.
It should be noted that the embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to adopt the membrane bridge structure in each of the above embodiments, and in practical applications, any other membrane bridge structure may be adopted as long as it may move in a direction approaching the transmission line extension portion 31 when the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2 are applied with different voltages.
The structure and function of other components of the present embodiment are the same as those of the above embodiments, and since the detailed description has been given in the above embodiments, the description will not be repeated here.
An embodiment of the present disclosure further provides a method for fabricating a phase shifter, including Steps 1 to 6, by taking the case of the phase shifter shown in
Step 1 includes forming the first bias wire 61 and the second bias wire 62 on the substrate 10 as shown in
The first bias wire 61 and the second bias wire 62 are fabricated by deposition process such as magnetron sputtering.
It should be noted that, in practical applications, applying the voltages on the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2 may also be implemented in other manners. The first bias wire 61 and the second bias wire 62 may not be provided depending on the manner of applying the voltages.
Step 2 includes forming, on the substrate 10, the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2 arranged spaced apart from each other, and the transmission line extension portion 31 of the at least one phase control element 3, as shown in
In an embodiment, the transmission line extension portion 31 is between the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2, is electrically coupled to the first transmission line 1, and serves as a lower capacitor plate.
The first transmission line 1, the second transmission line 2 and the transmission line extension portion 31 are simultaneously fabricated, and may be fabricated by magnetron sputtering, evaporation or electroplating.
Step 3 includes forming an insulating layer 4 on the transmission line extension portion 31 and on the side of the transmission line extension portion 31 distal to the substrate 10, as shown in
The insulating layer 4 is used to prevent a portion of the membrane bridge 32 from electrically communicating with the transmission line extension portion 31 when the portion of the membrane bridge moves in the direction approaching the transmission line extension portion 31.
The insulating layer 4 may be formed by deposition process such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process, physical vapor deposition (PVD) process, atomic layer deposition (ALD) process, or the like.
It should be noted that, in practical applications, the insulating layer 4 may not be provided, provided that a portion of the membrane bridge 32 does not contact the transmission line extension portion 31 when moving in the direction approaching the transmission line extension portion 31.
Step 4 includes forming the sacrificial layer 7 on the substrate 10 having the first transmission line 1, the second transmission line 2 and the transmission line extension portion 31 thereon, as shown in
The sacrificial layer 7 is configured to support the membrane bridge 32 in the subsequent step of forming the membrane bridge 32;
That is, in the subsequent process of forming the membrane bridge 32, the material for forming the membrane bridge 32 may be deposited on the sacrificial layer 7. The sacrificial layer 7 may be made of, for example, polyether polyol (DL 1000C).
The sacrificial layer 7 may be fabricated, for example, by spin coating.
Step 5 includes forming the membrane bridge 32 on the substrate 10 having the sacrificial layer 7 described above thereon, as shown in
The membrane bridge 32 is on a side of the sacrificial layer 7 distal to the substrate 10, is opposite to the transmission line extension portion 31 and is spaced apart from the transmission line extension portion, and the membrane bridge 32 is electrically coupled to the second transmission line 2. A portion of the membrane bridge 32 is configured to move to change the distance from the transmission line extension portion 31 when the first transmission line 1 and the second transmission line 2 are applied with different voltages.
The membrane bridge 32 may be fabricated by magnetron sputtering, evaporation, electroplating or the like.
It should be noted that, in order to reduce the process difficulty and reduce the process accuracy requirement, the right boundary of the sacrificial layer 7 shown in
Step 6 includes stripping the sacrificial layer 7, as shown in
After the sacrifice layer 7 is stripped, the horizontal portion 321 of the membrane bridge 32 may hang.
The sacrificial layer 7 may be stripped by means of, for example, wet etching or dry etching.
In an embodiment, after the step 5 is completed and before the step of stripping the sacrificial layer 7, the method may further include forming at least one hollow portion 34 in the membrane bridge 32, as shown in
The hollow portion 34 penetrates through the membrane bridge 32 in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the substrate 10.
In the process of fabricating the membrane bridge 32 by using the sacrificial layer, when a process (for example, wet etching or dry etching) for removing the sacrificial layer is performed, an etching solution or plasma may be used to etch the sacrificial layer through the hollow portion 34, so that the etching rate may be increased, and the process efficiency may be further improved. The hollow portion 34 is, for example, a through hole.
It should be noted that, in the present embodiment, although the method of fabricating the phase shifter is described by taking the case of the phase shifter shown in
As another technical solution, an embodiment of the present disclosure further provides an antenna, which includes the phase shifter according to the embodiments of the present disclosure.
In summary, the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a phase shifter, a method for fabricating the phase shifter, and an antenna. The phase shifter includes at least one phase control element. Each of the at least one phase control element includes a transmission line extension portion and a membrane bridge, the transmission line extension portion is disposed on the substrate and between the first transmission line and the second transmission line, and the transmission line extension portion is electrically coupled to the first transmission line; the membrane bridge is on a side of the transmission line extension portion distal to the substrate, is opposite to the transmission line extension portion and is arranged spaced apart from the transmission line extension portion, and the membrane bridge is electrically coupled to the second transmission line; a portion of the membrane bridge is configured to move to change a distance from the transmission line extension portion when the first transmission line and the second transmission line are applied with different voltages. By switching between applying different voltages and not applying voltages to the first and second transmission lines, a position at which the portion of the membrane bridge is located may be switched between an initial position and a position closer to the transmission line extension portion than the initial position, thereby changing the spacing between the two capacitor plates formed by the membrane bridge and the transmission line extension portion, and thus the capacitance can be changed. Compared with the method of changing the size of the capacitance utilizing liquid crystal deflection in the prior art, the method of changing the size of the capacitance in the embodiments of the present disclosure can enlarge the change range of the capacitance, so that the phase shifting effect by a single phase control element is more significant. The phase shifter according to the embodiments of the disclosure is a phase shifter based on micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS), which, compared with the liquid crystal phase shifter, has shorter response time and lower dielectric loss, can expand the usage scenario and reduce the loss of the antenna.
It could be understood that the above embodiments are merely exemplary embodiments used for describing the principle of the present disclosure, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Various variations and improvements may be made by those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and essence of the present disclosure, and these variations and improvements shall also be regarded as falling into the protection scope of the present disclosure.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202110351310.8 | Mar 2021 | CN | national |
