DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS AS A MICROWAVE CAD TOOL

With the increase in geometrical and physical complexity of microwave circuits, statistical techniques to reduce the design cycles continue to grow in importance. The objective of this article is to review the theory of a statistical design tool called the design of experiments (DOE) and discuss its utility in developing Computer-aided design models for microwave circuits. A circuit example of DOE application, pertaining to identification of dominant sources of variation in the return loss of a coplanar waveguide flip-chip interconnect package, is reviewed. An empirical design formula is developed for the return loss based on regression analysis, which demonstrates that interaction between factors cannot be neglected, as is the norm in trialanderror analysis using one factor at a time. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 52: 1020-1024, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.25133