W-band flip-chip VCO in thin-film environment

A flip-chip packaging approach for W-band GaAs chips is presented using thin-film structures on silicon as carrier substrate. Reliability investigations indicate that, depending on bump size, the CTE mismatch is not critical and an underfiller does not provide distinctive benefits. A 77 GHz VCO GaAs-HBT MMIC is flip-chip-mounted to demonstrate validity of the packaging scheme. Index Terms - Thin film circuit packaging, Flip-chip devices, MMIC oscillators.