Printed electronics and additive packaging for microwave applications

There is growing interest in adopting additive technologies for the production of RF/microwave electronics. In addition to the ability for rapid prototyping, printed electronics can offer the manufacturing of electronics in nontraditional form factors-flexible, lightweight, conformable or wearable. Developing printed electronics for the RF/microwave/wireless domain is particularly challenging since the requisite materials, fabrication technologies (i.e., printing), device characterization and design methodolgies require higher performance than low frequency applications. In addition to use in DoD systems (e.g., radars, communications) this printing technology can be applied to commercial applications such as IoT and 5G telecommunication products and may benefit from expoiting additive technologies in microelectronic packaging.