Additive Manufacturing for RF Across Scales: From Inkjet Multiband RFID to Micro-Printed sub-THz Devices
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Pastrana Aguirre, Fernando
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Abstract
This thesis explores how Additive Manufacturing (AM) can serve radio-frequency (RF) systems across two different applications. First, it presents well-known inkjet printing to fabricate a multi band Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tag with the goal of proving an innovative non-contiguous bandwidth integration algorithm for ranging. Second, it investigates novel micro-scale metal printing to enable sub-THz interconnects for compact multi-chip modules.
In the first part, a non-contiguous bandwidth integration approach for wireless sensing and ranging is introduced. Instead of relying on one wide, continuous band, the method uses information from several separated sub-bands and combines them in processing to emulate a wider effective bandwidth. To validate the idea, an inkjet-printed RFID tag has been designed, simulated, fabricated, and measured. Inkjet, although well-known, remains attractive here because it is accessible, repeatable, and fast. Alongside the hardware, it has been developed a signal-processing algorithm that fuses the non-contiguous sub-bands while minimizing the loss in ranging accuracy. The printed tag plus algorithm are evaluated through different ranging experiments.
In the second part, I shift to metal micro-printing, using Exaddon Ceres 3D printer, to address interconnects for future sub-THz systems. For instance, heterogeneous integration demands interconnects above 100 GHz. A custom efficient Voxelizer tool is introduced, enabling precise control of geometry at the micron scale. To validate its performance, some representative test structures are printed. Finally, fabrication of sub-THz interconnects with different materials is demonstrated.
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Date
2025-12
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Thesis (Masters Degree)