Near Hermetic Packaging Technology for MMIC Devices  

Foster-Miller, Inc. 

Waltham, MA 
 

Excellent Electrical and barrier properties of Liquid Crystal Polymers (LCP) are exploited to provide Light Weight, Low Cost, Near-Hermetic Packages for High Frequency Applications

• Developed processes to fabricate low loss, controlled  impedance transmission lines on LCP films
• Packaged and Tested a Triquint Low Noise Amplifier  (LNA) using flip chip technology.  Coefficient of Thermal  Expansion matched LCP substrate did not require underfilling
• Interconnected receiver circuit elements (mixer, LNA) on an  LCP substrate and tested up to 20 GHz
• Packages are 50% less weight with potential to achieve 75%  reduction in cost compared to hybrid technology

• Triquint Inc. interested in using the technology to package their  integrated circuits
• Teledyne Electronic Technologies interested to be a vendor of  substrates to the industry
• Superex, a Foster-Miller subsidiary, created to commercialize  the LCP technology, added three new employees

• LCP technology is suitable for transmit/receive (T/R) modules.  Applications include NASA communication satellites, and other communication satellite systems such as Iridium, Teledesic, etc
• Use of LCP technology for packaging will reduce the cost and weight of air-borne and space-borne electronic systems
• Keen interest to extend the technology to digital, and mixed signal applications and ball grid array, chip scale and built-up laminate technologies

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