Research

Executive Summary

Dr. Chen pioneered the research areas of low-cost, hermetic, broadband, plastic packaging up through 50 GHz in technologies including flex Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP), plastic overmold, laminate, and multilayer ceramic. Dr. Chen also has experience in MMIC design and MEMS. He has worked in the areas of space communications, microwave back-haul, mobile telecom, and optical transport networks.

Northrop Grumman Corporation(January 2024 - Present)
At Northrop Grumman, Dr. Chen managed the Quantum Sensors group with major research thrusts in the areas of atomic clocks, Rydberg atoms, and NMR magnetometers for future positioning, navigation, and timing.

Lucix Corporation (May 2021 - December 2023)
At Lucix, Dr. Chen served as Director of Electrical Engineering and Director of Advanced Development focused on advancing Solid-State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs) operating from S-band to Ka-band for commercial and military space-borne communications.

L3Harris Technologies (May 2017 - May 2021)
At L3Harris Technologies, Dr. Chen served as Director of Advanced Technology and Product Development managing an engineering team focused on Linearizer and Channel Amplifier products for commercial space-borne applications.

Nokia Technologies (Feb. 2015 - May 2017)
At Nokia Technologies, Dr. Chen developed Silicon chipsets for 5G mobile networks from the digital front-end to the antenna. Designs covered from 700 MHz to 86 GHz.

Huawei Technologies (Nov. 2010 - Feb. 2015)
At Futurewei Technologies, a US R&D subsidiary of Huawei Technologies, Dr. Chen developed hardware for 10G, 40G, 100G, and next generation optical transport networks (OTN). High-channel count components are designed to minimize cross-talk, group delay variaton, and power losses. Dr. Chen's contributions to integration technologies are in the areas of novel high-speed design and packaging to achieve low-loss, low-cost, high performance designs. Dr. Chen has developed processes for technologies including hermetic ceramic optical packages, laminate, and flex. Dr. Chen also worked for several years designing high-speed, broadband optical modulators in SOI for silicon photonics.

Endwave Corporation (acquired by Gigoptix in 2011) (Jan. 2008 - Nov. 2010)
At Endwave Corporation (acquired by Gigoptix in 2011), Dr. Chen designed and developed a number of low-cost integration technologies that cover DC to 50+ GHz frequencies. This included developing breakthrough Quad Flat No-Lead (QFN) packages that allow broadband operation from DC to 50 GHz simultaneously. QFN products utilized advanced technologies including overmolded leadframes and laminate-based air-cavities. While at Endwave, Dr. Chen performed extensive design and testing at IC, package, and module levels for commerically available products include Medium Power Amplifiers (MPAs), Variable Gain Amplifiers (VGAs), Distributed Power Amplifiers (DPAs), Fixed Attenuators, Voltage Variable Attenuators (VVAs), Filters, Mixers, Frequency Multipliers, Up-converters, Down-converters, and Voltage Controlled Oscillators (VCOs). Further, he designed and developed novel test fixtures for chip-sets over DC to 50 GHz frequencies.

University of California, Davis (2003 - 2008)
While at the University of California at Davis, Dr. Chen developed organic Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP) integration techniques for Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices. This technology allows for new low cost, high performance integration schemes for RF/microwave circuits (up to 67 GHz) by using low-cost organic RF/microwave circuit modules for System-in-Package (SiP), System-on-Package (SoP) packaging schemes. Research on organic circuits is particularly attractive for thin-film low loss RF/microwave circuits that allow compact module designs. Careful reliability studies have been performed on the advanced LCP packages. Excellent adhesion seals in excess of 3 lbs/in have been demonstrated. LCP has been demonstrated to show less than 1% Total Mass Loss (TML) and less than 0.1% Collected Volatile Condensible Materials (CVCM) historically required for space applications as determined through ASTM E595 outgassing. Dr. Chen showed that these LCP packages provide hermeticity levels that surpass current requirements for Mil-Std-883, Method 1014. Further, LCP packages are able to withstand a gauntlet of harsh environmental tests ranging from freeze expansion, thermal cycling, and 85C/85%RH life testing. Further, a MEMS phase shifter was developed to demonstrate a compact, multi-layer, hybrid, organic LCP/Polyimide integration scheme for RF MEMS switch modules. Lastly, a novel amplitude compensation scheme was developed on LCP for Long Time Delay (LTD) circuits to show less than +/-0.4 dB variation over the entire band from DC-10 GHz with 0 ps, 200 ps, 400 ps, and 600 ps delays.

While with UC Davis, Dr. Chen contributed to the following projects:

• DARPA/Lockheed Martin/GE Integrated Sensor is Structure (ISIS)
• Lockheed Martin/GE Radar-on-Chip (RoC)
• Microwave Carbon Nanotube Sensors,
• V-band Communications,
• Organic Flip-Chip Technology,
• Wafer scale packaging for RF/microwave frequencies,
• Planar, surface mountable, inductors
• and Organic SiP Passives.

Tool Proficiencies