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This paper addresses the miniaturization of microwave vector network analyzers (VNAs) and the future vision of the VNA on a chip. Therefore, a highly integrated two-port VNA with a multioctave bandwidth from 4 to 32 GHz is presented. The proposed system is based on a fully integrated radio-frequency frontend consisting of a two-port stimulus, a four-channel heterodyne receiver, and a wideband testset. The testset is comprised of on-chip multisection directional couplers. The chip is operated inside a hardware demonstrator using a 16-term calibration procedure. The measurement of arbitrary devices under test is in excellent agreement with commercial measurement equipment and showed a mean deviation from the reference measurement of 0.17 dB and 1.29° regarding the forward transmission of a coaxial 30-dB attenuator. The system and receiver dynamic ranges are 44–77 and 82–101 dB at a resolution bandwidth of 100 kHz over the full system bandwidth. The measurements are highly repeatable and are robust against drift over time. As a proof of concept, the developed integrated network analyzers are utilized in a biomedical sensing scenario with an external and an on-chip sensor. Both approaches showed good sensitivity regarding the mixture ratio of binary solutions of ethanol and methanol. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tightly coupled lines are difficult to realize on the conventional printed circuit board (PCB). This paper proposes two types of novel enhanced coupled-line structures appropriate for tightly coupled directional couplers and wideband filters. The proposed coupled-line structures both have a rectangular ground-plane aperture and two inserted signal strips in the aperture to increase the coupling strength significantly. No fine lines and narrow gaps are required so as to fit the conventional PCB fabrication process. More importantly, the proposed structures only need a single-layer substrate. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed structures, one 3-dB directional coupler and two four-pole Chebyshev filters with 0.05-dB equal-ripple bandwidths of 40% and 37% are designed and realized. The coupler and filters are fabricated on a PCB substrate with a dielectric constant of 3.58 and a thickness of 0.508 mm. Good agreement between measurements and simulations is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]