Microwave characterization of low temperature cofired ceramic system

Low Temperature Cofired Ceramic (LTCC) is a multilayer electronic packaging technology and has a unique ability to integrate passive components such as resistors, capacitors and inductors in a monolithic package. The LTCC can be used to make electronic circuits with high density interconnects and complex shape buried components. LTCC Technology has been extensively explored in the microelectronics industry as a ceramic packaging technology for integrated microcircuits. Ferro's A6 tape has a dielectric constant of 6 and low microwave losses of <0.17 dB/in at 10 GHz. The high frequency (GHz range) audio and video transmission application is expected to expand very rapidly in the near future. Microelectronic packages for high frequency application require conductive materials with high conductivity and dielectrics with low losses at microwave frequency range. The objective of the paper is to characterize the Ferro A6 LTCC system in the microwave frequency range. Ring resonator designs were used to characterize microwave properties of A6 LTCC packages with Ag, Au and Ag, Au mixed conductor systems. The effect of processing parameters such as peak firing temperature and time on microwave characteristics of LTCC system was studied. The effect of processing parameters on Q factor and microwave losses were studied and presented. The effect of conductor type and its surface roughness on microwave properties is also presented.