The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 28, 1998
Filed:
Sep. 17, 1996
Loren E Ralph, Citrus Heights, CA (US);
RF Prime Corporation, Sacramento, CA (US);
Abstract
A thick film construct and quadrature coupler for use in fabricating devices such as IQ modulators, IQ demodulators, vector modulators, image reject mixers, and multi-channel mixers. The thick film construct includes a dielectric substrate base with a metallized backside, a first metal trace deposited on the non-metallized side of the substrate base, a dielectric layer deposited over and around the first metal trace, and a second metal trace deposited on the dielectric layer. The first and second metal traces are aligned over their widths and lengths so to form a balanced transmission line structure where the first and second metal traces represent top and bottom lines in the balanced structure. This thick film structure serves as the foundation for microwave capacitors, mixers, and other transmission line based structures, including a quadrature coupler. The quadrature coupler which, in turn forms the basis for more complex devices, includes an input port, an isolated port, in-phase output port (I-port), and quadrature phase output port (Q-port).