Abstract
Attenuators are key modules for beamforming in millimeter-wave (mm-wave) wireless communication and radar systems. However, the increased switch losses at mm-wave frequencies, particularly in the D-band and above, result in higher overall insertion losses (IL). This paper presents two attenuator topologies applicable to mm-wave and terahertz (THz) regime. The proposed magnetically switchable coupled-lines (MSCL) based 4-bit attenuator achieves a minimum IL of 1.4 dB and an RMS amplitude error of < 0.34 dB operating from 190-220 GHz. To address the limited attenuation range of MSCL-based attenuator, a triple coupled resonant (TCR) based attenuator is proposed and provide a ~15 dB attenuation range with a minimum IL of 1.4 dB and RMS amplitude/phase errors of 0.3 dB and 1.7°, respectively.