Despite the great progress in data transmission systems using dielectric waveguides (DWGs) in the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency band (30–300 GHz), the signal distortions caused by DWGs have not yet been fully understood. However, such investigations would help to optimize DWGs as a transmission channel in order to further increase data rate and transmission distance of such systems without the need for more complex transceivers. Therefore, this paper presents a detailed study of the expected signal distortions caused by frequency-dependent attenuation and frequency-dependent group delay of circular DWGs at mm-wave frequencies. Based on a low-complexity digital transmission system, the effects of DWGs on the signal-to-noise ratio and the intersymbol interference at the receiver are evaluated. The figures and equations given in this paper allow the reader to easily calculate the channel properties and signal distortions for a wide range of circular DWGs without the need of finite element method solver or other time-consuming numerical simulations. Finally, design recommendations are given to minimize signal distortions for transmitting signals along DWGs.

A growing interest in dielectric waveguides (DWGs) as an alternative to commonly used waveguides (like coaxial or twisted-pair cables) for high data rate interconnects could be observed in the last few years. Especially in the mm-wave frequency range (30–300 GHz) applications with these waveguides benefit from low losses and low dispersion. Moreover, using both polarizations of the fundamental mode in such waveguides could theoretically double the data rate without the need of higher bandwidth or additional fibers. The connection between DWGs and commonly available transceiver chips requires broadband transitions from planar waveguides like microstrip lines to DWGs. In this paper, an overview of the current developments of such transitions is given and a novel low-complexity design is presented that reduces the space consumption by 35% related to recently published works. This allows an easy integration into a printed circuit board layout or a chip package. Furthermore, an extensive sensitivity analysis is presented to prove the robustness toward manufacturing tolerances. The transition is realized at W-band frequencies (75–110 GHz) and achieves a relative 10 dB-bandwidth of more than 25% with a minimum insertion loss of 1.2 dB. It is shown that these properties even hold for manufacturing tolerances of nowadays manufacturing processes.