A millimeter-wave wideband microstrip RF and DC grounding

Providing a wideband RF and DC grounding is an essential requirement in the design of microwave and millimeter-wave circuits. This paper presents a simple architecture for RF and DC grounding based on microstrip transmission line for 24 GHz and other millimeter-wave applications. The proposed structure consists of two stubs, one radial and one butterfly ended in a via hole which performs as a joint RF and DC ground. Simulation results of the proposed structure and comparison with other available structures of RF and DC grounding shows that this simple structure provides more bandwidth at the operating frequency (3 GHz bandwidth at the center frequency of 24 GHz). To verify the proposed technique, a prototype of this structure was fabricated and experimentally tested. Measurement results are in close agreement with the results obtained by simulations. Therefore, the approach to achieving a simple architecture for providing RF and DC grounding with more bandwidth is validated.