A terahertz on-chip InP-based power combiner designed using coupled-grounded coplanar waveguide lines*

Abstract

This article presents the design and performance of a terahertz on-chip coupled-grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) power combiner using a 50μm-thick InP process. The proposed topology uses two coupled-GCPW lines at the end of the input port to substitute two quarter-wavelength GCPW lines,which is different from the conventional Wilkinson power combiner and canavailably minimize the coverage area. According to the results obtained, forthe frequency range of 210–250z, the insertion losses for each two-waycombiner and four-way combiner were lower than 1.05 dB and 1.35 dB,respectively, and the in-band return losses were better than 11 dB. Moreover,the proposed on-chip GCPW-based combiners achieved a compromise in low-loss, broadband, and small-size, which can find wide applications in terahertz bands, such as power amplifiers and signal distribution networks.