Determining the input reflection coefficient of integrated antennas using over-the-air measurements under near-field conditions

One of the current trends in the integrated circuit (IC) development is the integration of antennas on-chip or in the package of the IC. This poses challenges in the production testing process of the packaged IC, as the antenna functionality has to be included and at least one of the signal ports cannot be accessed at a conducted manner. In order to measure the reflection coefficient of an integrated antenna, a contactless characterization method (CCM) can be used. In this paper, the practicality of a CCM is assessed, having the application of a cost-effective high-volume testing procedure for integrated antennas in mind. It is shown that the CCM yields accurate results for different imperfections in the measurement setup. Moreover, measurement results around 33 GHz using a connectorized patch antenna are shown, which experimentally verify the validity of using the CCM under near-field conditions.