Surfing the Millimeter-Wave: Multilayer Photoimageable Technology for High Performance SoP Components in Systems at Millimeter-Wave and Beyond

Ever-growing demand and emerging applications in the millimeter-wave (mmW) range for both commercial and military purposes require high-performance yet compact circuits and systems at a reasonable cost. Multilayer multichip module (MCM) or system-on-package (SoP) technologies are widely regarded as an excellent means to meet these advanced requirements. A variety of multilayer MCM technologies-including low-temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC), liquid crystal polymer (LCP), organic, and thin film on glass-have been developed. However, when conventional thick film is used, it is very difficult in applications requiring high mmW bands to realize either 1) lumped/passive components having a high self-resonance frequency (SRF), quality factor (Q), and also compactness or 2) substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) components with continuous sidewalls.