Wireless devices microfabricated in thick material layers

由于“人”设备(手机、平板电脑等)和“物”(即“物联网”)的数量不断增加，对高速宽带移动连接的需求呈指数级增长。到2022年，估计将有300亿台设备连接。为了适应数十亿个新的数据密集型连接，下一代无线网络被迫从拥塞的较低频率转移到毫米波(毫米波)频率，频率最高可达当前大多数无线应用的30-100倍。这是技术上的一次重大转变，也带来了一个巨大的问题。高性能毫米波天线在如此宽的频率范围内工作，现在需要大容量的消费大众市场，这在成本的背景下提供了巨大的性能挑战。*需要新的颠覆性技术来实现廉价的消费天线，支持这些数十亿美元的行业，同时在具有挑战性的毫米波体制下保持高性能。“聚合物天线”非常适合这些新兴的消费市场，原因有二：1)它们可以在这些非常高的频率下超越传统的金属天线；2)使用塑料成型技术大量制造它们的成本很低。塑料已经给大多数行业带来了革命性的变化，也可能给毫米波天线带来革命性的变化。*这项研究计划将进一步推进萨斯喀彻温省大学开发的“基于聚合物的谐振器天线(PRA)技术”。PRA天线技术尤其适用于新兴毫米波应用，例如5G(下一代电信)、WiGig(60 GHz WiFi)、增强/虚拟现实系统、汽车雷达传感器和自动驾驶车辆。将利用新材料和基于聚合物的微制造方法，开发和优化新的设备，以展示不同的性能特征和制造优势。*

The demand for high speed broadband mobile connections is growing exponentially, due to increasing numbers of “human” devices (phones, tablets, etc.), and also “things” (ie: the “internet of things”). There will be an estimated 30 billion device connections by 2022. To accommodate the billions of new data hungry connections, next generation wireless networks are forced to move from congested lower frequencies to millimetre-wave (mm-wave) frequencies at up to 30-100 times higher in frequency than most current wireless applications. This is a phenomenal shift in technology - and creates a huge problem. High performance mm-wave antennas that operate over these wide frequency ranges, are now demanded for high-volume consumer mass markets, which provides tremendous performance challenges in the context of cost.******New disruptive technologies are required to realize cheap consumer antennas supporting these billion dollar industries, while maintaining high performance in the challenging mm-wave regime. “Polymer antennas” are perfect for these emerging consumer markets for 2 reasons: 1) they can outperform legacy metal antennas at these very high frequencies; and 2) they can be cheap to fabricate in high volumes using plastic molding techniques. Plastics have revolutionized most industries, and could also revolutionize mm-wave antennas.******This research program will further advance the “Polymer-based Resonator Antenna (PRA) technology” developed at the University of Saskatchewan. The PRA antenna technology is especially relevant for emerging mm-wave applications, for instance in 5G (next gen telecom), WiGig (60 GHz WiFi), augmented/virtual reality systems, automotive radar sensors, and autonomous vehicles. Novel devices will be developed and optimized to demonstrate different performance characteristics and fabrication advantages, using novel materials and a polymer-based microfabrication approach.***