Home | | | | Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC) Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC)

Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC)

Spectrum Control's LTCC is an alternative glass-ceramic multilayer substrate medium that incorporates conventional thick-film-material metal systems, providing a rugged, cost competitive substrate that can incorporate embedded passive components, along with more advanced devices such as flipchips and wire bonded bare die.

Cavities can be configured in an LTCC substrate to provide controlled-impedance wire bond connections and high-reliability packaging solutions.

Contact us today for implementation guidance for selecting the appropriate substrate and component technology for your unique project requirements.

Multi-layer high performance substrates

hermetic optical mems array

LTCC technology is extremely useful in a diverse range of applications, including high-volume automotive systems. It is becoming the technology of choice for high-frequency RF and microwave applications in the wireless and radar industries.

Passive components can be buried between the LTCC tape layers, minimizing the length of interconnects, improving integration and robustness, and further reducing circuit geometry. This capability is supported by continual substantial investment in fully automated production facilities to maintain the consistent levels of quality demanded by our customer's high reliability requirements.

Substrates manufactured using the cofired technique can be processed using the same methods as standard alumina substrates. Once they have been fired, laser trimmed and singulated they can be populated using standard surface mount and advanced 

Overview

  • High performance electronic packaging and substrate technology
  • Ideally suited to RF and microwave products
  • Low loss glass-ceramic dielectric
  • High temperature, harsh environment suitability
  • Hermetic
  • Matched impedance routing
  • Strip line and microstrip transmission lines
  • Co-axial via structures
  • Embedded and surface printed resistors
  • Temperature coefficient of expansion matched to semiconductors

Suitability

  • Harsh environments
  • High mechanical stress
  • Extreme temperatures
  • Severe humidity

Highlights

  • Range of LTCC dielectric tape and conductor/resistor materials from leading suppliers/manufacturers – DuPont, Ferro and Hereaus.
  • Specialist Substrates Tapes: range of dielectric materials providing low cost high performance and low loss characteristics.
  • Silver, Gold, Platinum, Palladium Silver and Platinum Silver conductors.
  • Infinite range of values with sheet resistivities from 10 Ohms - 100K Ohms on the surface or embedded in the structure.
  • Vias can be stacked, staggered, buried, or blind. Hermeticity is achieve with a dielectric barrier.

Guidance on Appropriate Substrate and Component Technology Implementation

LLTC board

APITech's offers a complete engineering, design, qualification and manufacturing service for modules and subsystems. Interconnect and assembly design is performed on advanced CAD/CAE workstations by experienced electronics engineers. Full electronic simulation is performed on analogue, digital , RF and Microwave and mixed mode circuits.

APITech's has demonstrated capability up to 60GHz and power management of tens of watts of power with LTCC based technology and provides guidance on implementation of the most appropriate substrate and component technologies.

Overview

  • Electromagnetic design and simulation
  • Thermal simulation and design
  • Analogue and digital simulation and design
  • Thermal imaging analysis

Highlights

  • Integrating passive elements where appropriate
  • Optimum selection of bare die or packaged components
  • Utilising cavities for active and passive devices
  • Using thermal vias for power management
  • Application of different tape materials and layer thicknesses
  • Implementing distributed circuit elements (microstrips, striplines, stubs etc)
  • Integrating pipes and channels for fluid management and sensing, and for wave guide applications.

The Benefits of Utilizing LTCC Over Other Popular Substrate Technologies

LTCC board

LTCC is best suited for applications that can take advantage of one or more of the following:

  • Good electrical performance
  • Dimensional and electrical stability under temperature, moisture and mechanical stress
  • High density, through embedded passives and bare semiconductor die
  • 3D capability, cavities, channels
  • Effective thermal management with metal loaded vias
  • Hermeticity
  • Matched TCE with semiconductors (Thermal Coefficient of Expansion)
  • Multiple assembly and packaging solutions

LTCC Advantages Over Organic PCB

  • Higher operating temperature up to 350ºC
  • Lower expansion coefficient
  • Good thermal properties
  • Superior high frequency performance
  • Higher integration density: Embedded passives and higher layer count possible
  • Higher reliability: eliminates interconnections by integrating passives
  • Lower system cost: reduces test, insertion, assembly
  • Smaller package size due to integration
  • Cost effective for dense package due to parallel processing of layers
  • Hermetic packages possible

LTCC Advantages Over Thick Film

  • Cavities and high number of layers
  • Higher breakdown voltages between layers
  • Mixed metals easier to control – hermetic encapsulation of low cost silver interconnect
  • Surface topology smoother
  • Well defined dielectric thicknesses and therefore suitable for microwave signal transmission
  • Cavities allow:
    • Localised hermetic sealing
    • Reduced thickness under die (Reduced thermal paths)
    • Short, profiled wirebonds

LTCC Advantages Over HTCC

  • Lower resistance metalization i.e., Au & Ag Vs W & Mo
  • Higher number of layers
  • Lower tooling costs
  • Shorter prototype cycles
  • More embedded passive option i.e., alternate dielectrics
  • Higher flexibility of post print metal and dielectric options
  • Lower dielectric constant ceramic tapes available
  • Higher level of part complexity and flexibility