Ceramic Process Variation Impact on Electrical Design Of High Frequency Components

Abstract

The design and operation of high frequency microwave components and high-speed interconnects depends strongly on well characterized material technologies for robust, consistent, and repeatable performance from part to part. While characterization of the electrical and mechanical material properties is extremely important, the processing of the material into making structures is equally important. The process ultimately determines structure dimensional tolerances that will impact electrical performance, especially at high speed digital signal and high frequency applications. Understanding these tolerances, and their RF impact, can assist in selecting a material set based on process in addition to the published material electrical properties. This paper examines key electrical performance properties of two ceramic microwave components, a tapped line filter and an edge coupled microstrip filter, as a function of structure variations by use of a combination of a full-wave electromagnetic simulation tool and a pseudo-Monte Carlo analysis. These microwave components have been fabricated and measured to examine variations in RF performance as function of location on ceramic panel and to compare measured variations to expected variation predicted by simulation and analysis.