The push for faster computers, increased data rate communications and improved resolution radar is stimulating a need for components and systems that operate at increasingly higher frequencies. These frequencies are creeping up into the microwave domain around 10 GHz (10IOHz) corresponding to a wavelength of 3 cm and to a lesser extend into the millimeter-wave region around 100 GHz or a wavelength of 3 mm. The area of research on this Principle Young Investigator grant is the design and fabrication of innovative integrated circuits with operating frequencies in the range 10 GHz to 200 GHz. The research can be subdivided into three main areas, computer-aided design, circuit fabrication, and measurements. In the area of design he is concentrating on developing new computer algorithms for analyzing microwave and millimeter-wave circuits. He is looking at techniques for synthesizing microstrip circuits to obtain a specified performance. He would like to integrate the results of this research into future versions of Puff, an educational microwave computer aided design package that he has co-developed. Fabrication of these circuits provides an important means of verifying the accuracy and utility of the analysis techniques. The small wavelengths associated with these high frequencies requires that the circuits be very small. Professor Compton is a registered user of the NSF national Nanofabrication Facility at Cornell University where his group is working on new lithography procedures for fabricating these small circuits and devices. He also plans to investigate interactions between optical and millimeter-wave circuits, with the aim of demonstrating very dara rate communications. Testing of these circuits presents many challenges. To meet these challenges he is in the process of building specialized test equipment and circuit fixtures for making accurate millimeter-wave measurements.
