ABSTRACT
Often overlooked amid the spectacular advances in digital VLSI, monolithic microwave integrated
circuits (MMICs) are crucial building blocks of modern wireless communications systems. Combining
passive and active components of microwave circuits onto a single semiconductor substrate not only
dramatically reduces size and weight, and eliminates the harmful effects of wire interconnects, but also
reduces the cost and effort associated with assembly and most notably the manual pruning still very
common in microwave subsystem assembly.
