Additive Manufacturing of a Wideband Capable W-Band Packaging Strategy

• Published in: IEEE microwave and wireless components letters 2021-06, Vol.31 (6), p.697-700
• Main Authors: Craton, Michael Thomas, Albrecht, John D., Chahal, Premjeet, Papapolymerou, John
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Additive manufacturing; Additive manufacturing (AM); aerosol jet printing (AJP); Capacitors; Conductors; Dielectrics; Frequency ranges; Gallium arsenide; heterogeneous integration; Integrated circuit interconnections; Interconnections; Jet printing; Microwave circuits; millimeter wave (mm-wave) packaging; Nanocomposites; Packaging; Printing; Substrates; system-in-package (SiP); system-on-package (SoP); Thin films; Transmission lines
• ISSN: 1531-1309; 2771-957X; 1558-1764; 2771-9588
• DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2021.3061614

In this letter, we demonstrate a fully additively manufactured packaged W -band amplifier with integrated bypass capacitors. This package was fabricated using a chip-first approach and aerosol jet printing (AJP). Package substrates (dielectrics), conductors, and interconnects are printed around a bare die attached to a carrier. This package uses shaped ramp interconnects, allowing for frequency agnostic performance of the interconnect with no impedance discontinuity, within the physical limits of the printer. High dielectric constant thin films of a polymer-matrix nanocomposite for bypass capacitors were printed using multimaterial AJP. The maximum measured packaged gain is 14.9 dB in the W -band compared to the maximum bare die gain of 15.5 dB in the same frequency range. From 75 to 92 GHz, the average package loss is 1.1 dB including 3-mm transmission line, interconnects, and a ground-signal-ground (GSG) launch structure correlating to an average loss of 0.37 dB/mm.