On the Design and Fabrication of SMT-Compatible 3D-Freeform Antennas Based on Compression Molding and Direct Cu-Metallization

As the demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) continues to rise across various industries, there is a need for advanced sensing systems with high degrees of miniaturization and sensing capabilities. In this context, compression molding is a standard process for manufacturing reconfigured wafers, enabling both high performance and exceptional scalability in a Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging (FOWLP) context. This research builds on our previous work on 3D freeform antennas based on compression molding and direct Cu metallization. Herein, we aim to showcase a design framework which we use to extend previous work to achieve an optimized package, which can be SMT-mounted by reflow soldering and thus makes integration into existing systems a straightforward task. The concept allows for package design and validation by RF-simulations. At the same time, we extract manufacturing data for manufacturing of inlays for compression molding and layout data for laser drilling and photolithography. We showcase manufacturing results and discuss how the developed methodology allows to assess the complex interplay between geometrical variations and process tolerances and their impact on antenna performance, possibly addressing applications around autonomous driving and sensing in an IoT context, where miniaturization plays a crucial role.