Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
9, SEPTEMBER 1995
983
I. INTRODUCTION
HE maturing of monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology together with rapidly emerging
commercial markets in areas such as telecommunications
and automotive has spawned a variety of new military and
commercial applications at microwave and millimeter-wave
frequencies.
As a result, there is an increased emphasis on the packaging A. Electrical I n t e ~ a c e
The electronic package must provide means for coupling
of MMIC chips and MMIC-based components. Concurrently, a
number of new assembly and packaging technologies are being dc, RF, and in some cases control or logic signals into and
applied to RF components and subsystems. At the application out of itself. This should be accomplished with, ideally, no
or product level, MMIC packaging is driven by the forces of degradation in the performance of the electronic components
performance, size and weight, and cost. At the same time, the contained within the package. This, of course, is never realized
technology is moving toward increasing functional complexity, in practice as discussed below. Coming as close as possible to
achieving this goal, however, must remain a primary goal of
and consequently, multichip packages and modules.
In this paper, we will outline the current evolution in the package designer. To meet this objective, careful attention
microwave and millimeter-wave packaging through a series must be given to package design and simulation, choice of
of examples of newly emerging technologies and applications. materials and assembly processes, as well as the variability
Since much of the recent RF packaging development activity associated with the manufacturing process, areas which have
is being driven by the potential of very large numbers of received insufficient attention to the present.
transmidreceive ( T R ) modules required for future Department
of Defense ground, airborne, and space-based active array
B. Thermal Interface
antennas, much of the work described in this paper is related
The demand for ever-increasing power from millimeterto these modules.
wave and microwave devices has spurred improved thermal
design for packages. Table I lists some common substrate
11. PACKAGE FUNCTIONS
materials along with their respective thermal conductivities [ 11,
All electronic packages must provide a series of interrelated [2]. Typical package designs in the past have used a substrate
electrical, mechanical, and thermal functions which impact the attached to a metal package similar to the receive-only module
performance of the device(s) contained within them. Elec- shown in Fig. 1. This design approach increased the thermal
trically, the package must provide a means of conveying resistance and resulted in a possible mismatch between the
Manuscript received August 29, 1994; revised March 1, 1995.
coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the GaAs chips, the
This work was supported in part under Air Force Contracts AF 33615-92- substrate material, and the package material. A better design
C-1012 and AF 33615-93-C-1292.
is to use the substrate as part of the package, thus reducing the
T. A. Midford is with the Microwave Electronics Division of GM Hughes
Electronics, Torrance, CA 90509-2999 USA.
thermal path. Typically, the peak operating temperature of the
J. J. Wooldridge is with the Radar Systems Business Unit of GM Hughes, chip should be kept below 120 degrees C to provide a lifetime
Electronics, Los Angeles, CA 90009-2426 USA.
that is consistent with the expected product life of 5-10 years
R. Sturdivant is with TRW Systems, Redondo Beach, CA 90278 USA.
IEEE Log Number 9413641.
[3]. The maximum temperature will vary with the activation
0018-926X/95$04.00 0 1995 IEEE
984
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 43, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 1995
TABLE I
CANDIDATEPACKAGE
SUBSTRATEMATERIALS
~
1 1
Crromli
1 Air
Fused Quartz
w
Bororilrcare Glass
Boron Nitride (cubic
Aloha Ouanz
~
Thermal Gradient
AT ("C)
Structure
EN)
Did
Therm Cond
Conri
(WhKJ
T-
,Sir:zzPo),
,,
I,
- i n 1,
n-
n-
38
2. ..
38
168
1300
2
140
in
i
-
4 I
41
,,
1
i
( p s C )
n
-
os
34
38
!E
, 7-7- 4
!
22
22
2 2 '
985
A. Economics
Both military and commercial users are driving down the
cost of microwave packaging by developing technologies that
provide high yielding batch processing of the package and
substrate material. The costs associated with packaging are
the package and substrate material and fabrication, assembly
of the electronics into the package, and scrap and rework.
The substrate materials are being driven to lower costs by
batch processing. As an example, large area formats are being
developed for processing polyimide and aluminum nitride
substrates. Alumina substrates are already fired in large area
formats (24 x 24). The substrates are also designed to carry
the microwave signals underneath the metal package rim by
using coplanar or microstrip lines thus eliminating expensive
microwave connectors.
The MMIC package requirements for the DoD are summarized below [6]:
The military is developing net shape packages that require
no additional machining after fabrication. AlSiC is being cast
in net shape packages by Ceramics Process Systems. Martin
Marietta is developing electroformed packages for millimeter
waves. Commercial houses such as Motorola are developing
low cost plastic packages.
To reduce the design, manufacturing, and test costs associated with packaging, the government is sponsoring the
development of package design, modeling, and simulation
tools. Presently, there are commercial software packages that
have not been linked together to provide a seamless transfer of
data for mechanical, thermal, and RF performance of the package. Some of these linkages will be performed on the ARPA
and Tri-Service sponsored High Density Microwave Packaging
Program (HDMP). One of the major thrusts of this and future
programs is the development of the databases for materials,
devices, and interconnects, that will allow the designer to
simulate the Dackane Derformance with the intenrated CAD
TABLE II
NEW PACKAGE
MATERIALS
Conducuwty
* Easy to Machine
CTE Match to Both
GaAs and Si
layers
SiUkL
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 43, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 1995
987
Substrate
Pad
InterGhip
/bnnhns
@-right)
Fig. 3
(a) Comparison of face-up and flip-chip die attach techniques. (b) Silver interconnect bumps.
988
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 43, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 1995
TABLE I11
ELECTROMAGNETIC
SIMULATION TOOLS
FOR MICROWAVE
PACKAGE DESIGN
Serialize
Frequency Domain
I
~
MacNeaI-
Schwndler
l MCSEMAS
.- ...... . .
1 nullmeter-wave ~ ~ ~ c u m
Finite Element Method
(adaptive gnd)
Frequency Domain
3-Uelecmmag-
1 netic field
behavior
1
Deflux
(can d u d e square
shaped vias) C I T C U I ~ S
Test
.c
Seam Seal
IL
Module DC 8 RF Test
Fig. 4. HE microwave's process flow for the T/R module. A small number
of manufacturing steps with key process controls is used to ensure high yields.
989
Fig. 5. Evolution of packaging for the T/R module. thin-film single-layer substrates with aluminum metal packages and connectors have evolved to
3-D multilayer circuitry with no connectors. (a) Single-layer thin-film substrate in metal package with conventional connectors and discrete devices. (b)
First thick-film single-layer substrate. (c) Multilayer thick-film LTCC substrate with low power flip-mounted chips and no connectors. (d) All flip-chip
multilayered AZN substrate.
Fig. 5. (Continued)(e) Multichannel module employing 3-D stacked multilayer thick-film AZN substrates and flip-chip MMICs.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 43, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 1995
v.
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