About LTCC used in RF front end - advice needed

[easygoing]

About LTCC

Can anyone discuss LTCC used in RF front end?Maybe I could do it in coming future.
From some webs, I find that it is mainly used in passive elements,especially filters and vco...

Anyone advices?

 

[godz]

Re: About LTCC

Hi,
LTCC is one of the low cost MCM technologies, you can find good info about this in the following website www.valtronic.com.
regards,

 

[VSWR]

Re: About LTCC

- long delivery time
- not for high power design (bad heat conducting)

 

[flatulent]

good use

They are very good for making modules that use transmission lines like filters and couplers. I saw one that was multilayered and had about six filters in a square cm or two.

 

[JoeSchmo]

Re: About LTCC

LTCC is a good approach for a front end when cost and/or complexity are driving the design. It has decent thermal charateristics, although electrically, due to the roughness of the metalization, the losses can be a little higher than soft substrate.

Reasons to use LTCC:
- Extremely complex multilayer circuits (30+ Layers) including over 80,000 vias (blind, if necessary) per layer

- Touch labor is low compared to similar circuits in other substrates

- Very good precision

Reasons not to use LTCC:

- Vendor stability. The vendor's firing profiles vary to the point that you design to their process

- Shrinkage. While in local precision is excellent, a large scale shrinkage is rather unpredictable. Flatness is also an issue