TY - GEN
T1 - Screen-printed flexible coplanar waveguide transmission lines
T2 - 69th IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference, ECTC 2019
AU - Amoli, Nahid Aslani
AU - Sivapurapu, Sridhar
AU - Chen, Rui
AU - Zhou, Yi
AU - Bellaredj, Mohamed L.F.
AU - Kohl, Paul A.
AU - Sitaraman, Suresh K.
AU - Swaminathan, Madhavan
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT This material is based, in part, on research sponsored by Air Force Research Laboratory under agreement number FA8650-15-2-5401, as conducted through the flexible hybrid electronics manufacturing innovation institute, NextFlex. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of Air Force Research Laboratory or the U.S. Government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) is a promising technology enabling many applications in biomedical, communication, energy harvesting and internet of things (IoT) areas. To realize FHE applications, the components and devices used in the mentioned technologies need to be electrically characterized under various flexible conditions such as stretching, bending, twisting, and folding. Also, the strain analysis from the mechanical point of view needs to be conducted to justify the reliable applications of FHE under different flexible scenarios. In this paper, the design and electrical characterization of coplanar waveguides (CPWs) in flexible substrates such as Kapton polyimide and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) under uniaxial bending are studied and discussed. The fabricated lines were measured using a vector network analyzer (VNA) up to 8 GHz under both flat and bending conditions. Finite-element models (FEM) of CPW lines were created in ANSYS HFSS to capture the effect of bending on the CPW frequency response. In addition, the variations in the trace width and separations along the CPW lines were modeled accurately to capture the variations in the fabrication process and their effect on the CPW S-parameters in the flat condition. The finite element analysis of strain variation during bending was also performed and the relationship between strain variation and CPW performance was investigated. The bending of the CPW lines was carried out using two parallel plates that had a gap distance varying from 40 mm to 140 mm. The S-parameters were monitored in-situ while the substrate was under bending. The experimental results were compared against simulated results under both flat and bent configurations. Based on the conducted studies, correlation was achieved for the flat and bending scenarios between measurement and simulation results. Also, it was observed that the CPW line has better matching and lower losses compared with the flat case and tensile bending cases.
AB - Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) is a promising technology enabling many applications in biomedical, communication, energy harvesting and internet of things (IoT) areas. To realize FHE applications, the components and devices used in the mentioned technologies need to be electrically characterized under various flexible conditions such as stretching, bending, twisting, and folding. Also, the strain analysis from the mechanical point of view needs to be conducted to justify the reliable applications of FHE under different flexible scenarios. In this paper, the design and electrical characterization of coplanar waveguides (CPWs) in flexible substrates such as Kapton polyimide and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) under uniaxial bending are studied and discussed. The fabricated lines were measured using a vector network analyzer (VNA) up to 8 GHz under both flat and bending conditions. Finite-element models (FEM) of CPW lines were created in ANSYS HFSS to capture the effect of bending on the CPW frequency response. In addition, the variations in the trace width and separations along the CPW lines were modeled accurately to capture the variations in the fabrication process and their effect on the CPW S-parameters in the flat condition. The finite element analysis of strain variation during bending was also performed and the relationship between strain variation and CPW performance was investigated. The bending of the CPW lines was carried out using two parallel plates that had a gap distance varying from 40 mm to 140 mm. The S-parameters were monitored in-situ while the substrate was under bending. The experimental results were compared against simulated results under both flat and bent configurations. Based on the conducted studies, correlation was achieved for the flat and bending scenarios between measurement and simulation results. Also, it was observed that the CPW line has better matching and lower losses compared with the flat case and tensile bending cases.
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U2 - 10.1109/ECTC.2019.00044
DO - 10.1109/ECTC.2019.00044
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85072274987
T3 - Proceedings - Electronic Components and Technology Conference
SP - 249
EP - 257
BT - Proceedings - IEEE 69th Electronic Components and Technology Conference, ECTC 2019
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 28 May 2019 through 31 May 2019
ER -