Distinguished Scientist and Engineer Seminar Series: Rashaunda M. Henderson

The Annual Distinguished Scientist and Engineer Seminar Series showcases the work of accomplished faculty from underrepresented groups. Invited scholars will give a research presentation and lead a second workshop to share their perspective on navigating an academic career.

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This year's invited scholar is Rashaunda M. Henderson, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. She will deliver her talk on Tuesday, April 11, from 4 to 5 p.m. in Old Chapel. The topic of her seminar is “Millimeter Wave Integration and Packaging Strategies Using Antenna-in-Package.”

Affordable and high-performance front-end modules (FEMs) have been identified as key research challenges for next-generation millimeter wave communications. While the design of active components and sub-systems has been explored by many research groups, there is still a need to provide integration and packaging strategies that can meet system requirements and not inhibit the performance obtained at the wafer level. This poses challenges on the front-end modules (FEM) to deliver innovative packaging solutions which can fulfill the FEM integration requirements to maximize performance. Antenna-in-package (AiP) is a key technique that will enable the realization of 6G FEMs.

The talk will discuss AiP solutions from a multi-disciplinary research team and will highlight the design, modeling, and characterization of planar antennas integrated into enhanced quad flat no-lead (eQFN) packages in WR8 and WR5 frequency bands. Further, the design, modeling and simulation results of chip-to-package transitions, transmission line structures, and antenna feed elements are discussed. The simulated bandwidth and gain of the integrated antennas is compared with their standalone versions. To facilitate accurate design of the antennas and packaging transitions, high-frequency material characterization has been conducted to obtain dielectric properties of the over-mold materials. A workflow to characterize fatigue failure under board-level vibration will be introduced with simulation results indicating the potential locations of solder failure under vibration. Validation of simulation results is conducted using fringe projection to directly measure the vibration mode when a printed circuit board is under vibration.

Rashaunda M. Henderson earned the BSEE degree from Tuskegee University in 1992 and the MS and Ph.D. degrees, also in electrical engineering, from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1994 and 1999, respectively. She joined Motorola Semiconductor Product Sector in Tempe, Arizona and worked as a research and development device engineer focusing on passive circuits integration in the microwave and mixed-signal technology labs for wireless embedded systems. She joined The University of Texas at Dallas in 2007 as an assistant professor in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. She is now a professor in the ECE department and interim co-department head. Dr. Henderson is co-founder of the High Frequency Circuits and Systems Laboratory, which facilitates millimeter-wave design and development of components, circuits and integrated packages and antennas for wireless communication systems. Henderson is a senior member of the IEEE and served as the 2022 President of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S).

This event is co-sponsored by the College of Engineering and the College of Natural Sciences. It is free to attend and handicapped accessible.