Rhonda Franklin
McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor
IEM Abbot Professor of Innovative Education
Contact
6-127 Kenneth H. Keller Hall
200 Union Street Se
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Rhonda Franklin
McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor
IEM Abbot Professor of Innovative Education
My research interests focus on exploring the use of Microelectronic Mechanical Structures (MEMS) in radio frequency (RF) and microwave applications related to wireless, mobile, and satellite communications systems. In particular, emphasis is directed toward novel design, fabrication, and testing methods of planar circuits and antennas, such as microstrip, as well as package technology for integrated circuits. I am also interested in exploring the use of advanced micromachined packages and interconnects in photonic and high-speed electronic (also referred to as RF/microwave photonic) applications.
My educational interests focus on offering a diverse learning experience to future RF and microwave engineers through traditional classroom training, practical CAD, hands-on laboratory experiences and research opportunities. Web-based learning methods and multidisciplinary approaches are also explored that offer broader training and understanding of how applied electromagnetics fundamentals relate to applications in the communications field.
Education
Ph.D., EE, 1995, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
M.S., EE, 1990, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
B.S., EE, 1988, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States
Professional Background
Design of circuits, antennas, interconnects (2D and 3D), integrated packaging, and materials characterization (thin film and nanowires) for microwave and millimeter wave applications
Honors and Awards
2026 Rudolf Henning Distinguished Mentoring Award (IEEE WAMICON)
2026 IEEE Fellow for "leadership in microwave engineering education and workforce development"
2022 McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor
2021 IEEE MGA Diversity and Inclusion Award
2021 George W. Taylor Award for Distinguished Service
2019 N. Walter Cox Service Award (IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society)
2018 Willie Hobbs Moore Distinguished Alumni Lecturer (University of Michigan ECE Department)
2018 Minnesota African American Heritage Calendar Award
2017 John Tate Advising Award (University of Minnesota)
2014 Sara Evans Faculty Scholar/Leader Award, (University of Minnesota)
2012 and 2013 U of Minnesota Morse Alumni Teaching Award Finalist (University of Minnesota)
2012 CIC Academic Leadership Fellow (University of Minnesota)
2006 NAE 9th Annual German-American Frontiers of Engineering (GAFOE) Symposium
2003 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award
2003 NAE 6th Annual German-American Frontiers of Engineering (GAFOE) Symposium
2002 NAE 8th Annual Symposium on Frontiers in Engineering
1998 NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE)
Selected Publications
Antennas – Microfluidics and Fabry-Perot Antennas Systems with Frequency Selective Surfaces
Casey Murray and Rhonda R. Franklin, “Independently Tunable Annular Slot Antenna Resonant Frequen-cies Using Fluids,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, 2014, pp.1449 – 1452, Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/LAWP.2014.2341232.
C. Lee, B. Sainati, R. Franklin, R. Harjani, “Comparative analysis of frequency selective surface geometry effect in Fabry-Perot Cavity antenna design,” 16th IEEE Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference (2015 WAMICON), pp. 1-4, April 2015, Coco Beach, FL., DOI: 10.1109/WAMICON.2015.7120426.
C. Lee, B. Sainati, R. Franklin, and R. Harjani, “Fluidic Switching and Tuning of Fabry-Perot Antenna,” presented at the IEEE 2015 APS/URSI Conference, Vancouver BC, July 2015.
C. Lee, B. Sainati, and R Franklin, “Parametric Study of Near and Far-Field Performance of FPC An-tenna System”, 17th IEEE Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference (2016 WAMICON), pp. 1-4, April 2016, Clearwater, FL.
C. Lee, B. Sainati and R. Franklin, “Analysis of Coplanar Waveguide Feedline Effect on Fabry-Perot Cav-ity Antenna System Performance,” 2016 IEEE Antenna and Propagation Society International Sympo-sium, June 2016 (Puerto Rico).
C. Lee, B. Sainati and R. Franklin, “Fabry-Perot Cavity Antenna System with Beam-Splitting of Near-Field Radiation,” 2016 IEEE Antenna and Propagation Society International Symposium, June 2016 (Puerto Rico).
C. Lee, B. Sainati, and R. Franklin, “Design of Beam-Splitting Frequency Selective Surfaces for Fab-ry-Perot Cavity Antenna Systems,” 2016 European Microwave Conference, Oct. 2016 (London, Eng-land).
C. Lee, B. Sainati, and R. Franklin, “Reconfigurable Frequency Selective Surface for Fabry-Perot Cavity Antenna System,” 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting in San Diego, California, July 9-14, 2017, submitted: 1/16/2017, accepted.
C. Lee, B. Sainati, and R. Franklin, “Microfluidic Near-Field Beam-Splitting Frequency Selective Sur-face for Fabry-Perot Cavity Antenna System,” 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting in San Diego, California, July 9-14, 2017, submitted: 1/16/2017, accepted.
C. Lee, B. Sainati, and R. Franklin, “Frequency Selective Surface Effects on a Coplanar Waveguide Feedline in Fabry-Perot Cavity Antenna Systems,” 2018 IEEE Microwave Wireless Components Letters, Vol. 17, No. 5, 2018.
Chanjoon Lee, Aditya Dave, Robert Sainati, and Rhonda Franklin, “Near-Field Multi-Beam-Splitting for Fabry-Perot Cavity Antenna System, 2018 APS/URSI International Symposium, Boston, MA, July 2018.
Chanjoon Lee, Aditya Dave, Robert Sainati, and Rhonda Franklin, “Source Effect on Near-Field Multi-Beam-Splitting in Fabry-Perot Cavity Antenna System,” 2018 APS/URSI International Symposium, Boston, MA, July 2018
Circuits – Compact Passives, Microfluidic, and Magnetic Nanowires
S. R. Banerjee and R. F. Drayton, “Circuit models for constant impedance micromachined lines on dielectric discontinuities,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 52, pp. 105-111, Jan. 2004.
T. Pan, A. Baldi, E. Davis-venn, R. F. Drayton, and B. Ziaie, “Fabrication and modeling of silicon-embedded high-Q inductor,” J. Micromech. Microeng., vol. 15, pp. 849–854, March 11, 2005.
S.R. Banerjee, C. Zheng, and R.F. Drayton, “A 3D Miniaturization Method for Low Impedance Designs,” IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging – Special Issue on The Electrical Performance of Packages and Interconnects, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 200-208, May 2007.
C. Murray and R. R. Franklin, “Impedance Matching using Fluidic Channels in Coplanar Waveguide Structures,” Microwave and Optical Letters, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 789-793, April 2013.
C. Murray and R. R. Franklin, “Edge Coupled Variable Microfluidic Directional Coupler,” Microwave and Optical Letters, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 756-758, April 2013.
G. Miranda and R. Franklin, “Fluidic Tunable Microstrip Bandstop Filter,” 15th Annual IEEE Wire-less and Microwave Technology Conference (WAMICON 2014), pp. 1-3, June 6, 2014, Poster Presentation.
W. Zhou, J. Um, B. Stadler, and R. Franklin, “Design of Self-Biased Coplanar Circulator with Ferro-magnetic Nanowires,” presented at the 2018 Radio Wireless Systems Symposium Digest, p.240-243, Anaheim, CA, Jan. 2018.
Integration – 3D Interconnects and Integrated Packaging
Rhonda Franklin Drayton, S. Riki Banerjee, and Jeremy L. Haley, “Characterization of micromachined transitions for high-speed integrated packages,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Special Issue on Wireless Technology, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 693-697, May 2002.
Rajesh R. Patel, Steven W. Bond, Michael D. Pocha, Michael C. Larson, Henry E. Garrett, Rhonda F. Drayton, Holly E. Petersen, Denise M. Krol, Robert J. Deri, and Mark E. Lowry, “Multi-wavelength parallel optical interconnects for massively parallel processing,” IEEE J. Select. Top. Quant. Elec., vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 657-666, March-April 2003.
(Invited Paper) I. Itotia and R. F. Drayton, “Loss Reduction Methods for Planar Circuit Designs on Lossy Substrates,” IEEE 2004 Antenna and Propagation Symposium Digest, pp. 1447-1450, Monterey, CA.
(Invited Paper) Rhonda Franklin Drayton, “Recent Developments in Porous Silicon Substrates for RF/Microwave Applications,” 5th Topical IEEE Meeting on Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems Digest, pp. 155-162, Atlanta, GA, September 2004.
S.R. Banerjee and R. F. Drayton, “50 GHz Integrated Interconnects in Silicon Optical Microbench Technology, IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 307-313, May 2006.
Hosaeng Kim and Rhonda Franklin Drayton, “Size Reduction Method of Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) Electromagnetic Bandgap (EBG) Structures Using Slow Wave Design, 2007 IEEE Silicon RF Confer-ence Digest (SiRF), pp. 191-194, Jan. 11, 2007, Long Beach, CA.
H. Kim and R. Franklin-Drayton “Wire-Bond Free Technique for Right-Angle Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) Bend Structures,” IEEE Transaction on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 442-8, Feb. 2009.
Y-S. Cho and R. Franklin-Drayton, “Characterization and Lumped Circuit Model of Ultra-Wideband Flip-Chip Transitions (DC – 110 GHz) for Wafer-Scale Packaging,” Microwave and Optical Technolo-gy Letters, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 1281-5, May 2009.
Y-S. Cho and R. Franklin-Drayton, “Development of Ultra-Broadband (DC-50GHz) Wafer-Scale Packaging Method for Low Profile Bump Flip-Chip Technology,” IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 788-96, Nov. 2009.
Materials – Novel and Chaaracterization
Rebecca Lorenz Peterson and Rhonda Franklin Drayton, “A CPW T-Resonator technique for electrical characterization of microwave substrates,” IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 90-92, Mar. 2002.
S. R. Banerjee and R. F. Drayton, “Development of quasi half coax lines for wafer level packaging,” Proceedings of the 2005 Electronic Components and Technology Conference, vol. 1, pp. 551 – 556 Vol. 1, June 2005.
ChengLin Zheng, S. Riki Banerjee, and Rhonda F. Drayton, “Modeling of Irregular Non-planar Transi-tion Effects Formed by Bulk Micromachining on High Resistivity Silicon Wafer,” 2006 IEEE Meeting on Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems Digest, pp. 89-92, 18-20 January 2006, San Diego, CA.
E. Davis-Venn and R. F. Drayton, “Novel Embedded Low Impedance Design Method Approach for MMIC Applications,” 2006 IEEE Meeting on Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems Di-gest, pp. 252-255, 18-20 January 2006, San Diego, CA.
Y. Liu, H. Kim, R. Franklin, and D. R. Bond, “Gold line array electrodes increase substrate affinity and current density of electricity-producing G. sulfurrenducens, biofilms,” Energy and Environmental Sci-ence, vol. 3, no. 11, pp. 1782-1788, 2010, DOI. 10.1039/c0ee00242a.
Y. Liu, H. Kim, R. Franklin, D. Bond, “Linking Spectral and Electrochemical Analysis to Monitor c-type Cytochrome Redox Status in Living Geobacter sulfurrenducens Biofilms,” CHEMPHYSCHEM, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 2235-2241, 2011, DOI: 10.1002/chphc.201100246.
Y. S. Cho and R. R. Franklin, “Conducting Polymer Material Characterization Using High Frequency Planar Transmission Line Measurement“ Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials, Vol. 13, No. 5, pp. 237-240, October 25, 2012, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4313/TEEM.2012.13.5.237.
W. Zhou, J. Um, Y. Zhang, and A. Nelson, B. Stadler, and R. Franklin, “Ferromagnetic Resonance Characterization of Magnetic Nanowires for Bio-label applications, 2018 International Microwave Bi-omedical Conference, June 14-15, 2018.
Microwave Diagnostics – for Reliability
L. You, C. Okoro, J. Ahn, J. Kopanski, R. Franklin, and Y. Obeng, Broadband Microwave-Based Me-trology Platform Development: demonstration of In-Situ Failure Mode Diagnostic Capabilities for Inte-grated Circuit Reliability Analyses, ECS J. Solid State Sci, Technol. 2015 (online), Vol. 4, No. 1, N3113-N3117, DOI: 10.1149/2.0151501jss.
Y. Obeng,C. Okoro, P. Amoah, R. Franklin, P. Kabos, Low Frequency Radio Wave Detection of Elec-trically Active Defects in Dielectrics,” ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology 01/2016; 5(4):P3025-P3030. DOI: 10.1149/2.0051604jss.
Engineering Education
J. Frolik, P. Flikkema, T. Weller, C. Haden, W. Shiroma and R. Franklin, “Leveraging multi-university collaboration to develop portable and adaptable online course content,” ASEE Advances in Engineering Education (online), Vol. 3, No.3, Winter 2013.
T. Weller, C. Haden, J. Frolik, P.G. Flikkema, A. Ohta, S. Thomas, R. Franklin, and W. Shiroma, “A Systems-Centric, Foundational Experience in Circuits,” 2014 ASEE Annual Conference, Indianapolis, IN, June 2014.
P. Flikkema, R. Franklin, J. Frolic, C. Haden, A. Ohta, W. Shiroma, S. Thomas and T. Weller, “EN-FUSE: Engaging Fundamentals and Systems Engineering in Introductory Circuits,” 2015 ASEE Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, June 14-17, 2015.