-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- pcb007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueWet Process Control
In this issue, we examine wet processes and how to obtain a better degree of control that allows usable data to guide our decisions and produce consistently higher-quality products.
Don’t Just Survive, Thrive
If we are to be relevant and prosper during these next critical decades in electronics, we must do more than survive. As an industry, we can and must thrive. In this issue, our contributors explore these concepts meant to help you take your business to the next level.
Material Matters
Materials management is nuanced, multifaceted, and requires a holistic systems approach for business success. When building high mix, low volume, and high technology, managing materials and overall cost containment are even greater challenges.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - pcb007 Magazine
UHDI Fundamentals: UHDI for RF Microwave Applications
July 16, 2024 | Anaya Vardya, American Standard CircuitsEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
![](https://iconnect007.com/application/files/9917/1880/7770/Anaya_Vardya_300_0624.jpg)
Ultra high-density interconnect (UHDI) technology has significant potential for RF (radio frequency) microwave applications. Its advantages lie in its ability to provide high-density routing and integration, which are crucial for complex RF circuits. Here are three key UHDI benefits in RF microwave applications:
1. Signal Integrity
In RF applications, signal integrity is paramount. UHDI facilitates controlled impedance routing, reducing signal loss and ensuring reliable transmission of RF signals. UHDI improves signal integrity in the following ways:
- Controlled impedance routing: UHDI allows for precise control over the impedance of transmission lines, which is crucial for maintaining signal integrity in RF circuits. Controlled impedance ensures that signals propagate with minimal reflections and distortion, especially at high frequencies.
- Reduced crosstalk: UHDI enables dense routing of transmission lines while minimizing the spacing between them. This reduces the likelihood of crosstalk, where signals from adjacent traces interfere with each other, thus preserving the integrity of individual signals.
- Optimized via placement: UHDI facilitates strategic placement of vias (vertical interconnect access) to minimize signal distortion and reflections. By optimizing via placement, signal paths can be kept short and impedance transitions can be managed effectively, reducing signal degradation.
- High-frequency performance: UHDI substrates are designed to support high-frequency operation, typically with low dielectric loss and low dispersion characteristics. This ensures that RF signals can propagate efficiently without significant attenuation or distortion, maintaining signal integrity across the frequency spectrum.
- Shielding and grounding: UHDI designs can incorporate shielding layers and efficient grounding techniques to minimize electromagnetic interference (EMI) and maintain a clean RF environment. Proper shielding and grounding help prevent external noise from degrading signal quality.
- Signal integrity simulation and modeling: Advanced simulation and modeling tools are available for UHDI designs, allowing engineers to analyze signal integrity characteristics such as impedance matching, reflection coefficients, and insertion loss. These tools enable designers to optimize layouts for optimal signal integrity performance.
- Thermal management: Thermal issues can impact signal integrity in RF circuits, particularly at high power levels. UHDI designs can incorporate thermal management techniques such as thermal vias and heat sinks to dissipate heat effectively, ensuring stable performance of RF components.
- Low loss materials: UHDI substrates can utilize low-loss dielectric materials that minimize signal attenuation and phase distortion, particularly at high frequencies. This ensures that RF signals maintain their integrity as they propagate through the circuit.
To read the entire article, which originally appeared in the July 2024 Design007 Magazine, click here.
Suggested Items
The New Chapter: The Impact of Parasitics on PCB Design
08/28/2024 | Hannah Grace & Paige Fiet -- Column: The New ChapterThere are many considerations when planning and designing a board layout, and factors that include signal integrity, electromagnetic interference, and power integrity must be considered. Newer board designers often forget one factor crucial to a PCB’s performance and reliability, namely board parasitics, which usually refers to an unintended electrical effect in electronic components and interconnections. This can often lead to significant changes in the physical characteristics of the layout of the PCB. Typically, in board design, parasitics look similar to the length of a trace or a wire. Each trace is slightly resistive, slightly inductive, and slightly capacitive. These are commonly known as parasitic capacitance, parasitic inductance, and parasitic resistance.
Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) Confirms Successful Deployment of HawkEye 360 Microsatellite Cluster 10
08/20/2024 | BUSINESS WIRESpace Flight Laboratory (SFL) confirmed that HawkEye 360 Cluster 10 has been successfully launched and deployed in orbit. Cluster 10 brings to 30 the total number of radio frequency geolocation microsatellites developed for HawkEye 360 by SFL and is the third Cluster integrated at HawkEye 360’s Virginia facility under the SFL Flex Production Program.
Happy’s Tech Talk #31: Novel Ultra HDI Architectures
08/12/2024 | Happy Holden -- Column: Happy’s Tech TalkUltra HDI has become the focus for many fabricators, especially as the follow-on for the 40-year-old conventional HDI. But there is more to UHDI than just finer traces and spaces. Novel architectures have been developed that complement the new dense lithography. One of the major advantages of HDI, and especially ultra HDI, is the miniature features of the process. Since the microvias and lands are so small, they can be swung around at various angles between the BGA lands. The angles and distances will depend on the BGA pitch and where the microvia is placed relative to the BGA SMT land.
Real Time with… THECA 2024: State of the Art Copper Adhesion
08/09/2024 | Real Time with... THECABruce Lee, MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions, joined Nolan Johnson following his paper presentation on the show's mainstage. Lee provided a detailed overview of the current state of adhesion promoters and discussed the interaction between mechanical adhesion, chemical adhesion, signal integrity, and substrate impacts.
Trouble in Your Tank: Materials for PWB Fabrication—Drillability and Metallization
07/16/2024 | Michael Carano -- Column: Trouble in Your TankLaminate materials are the building blocks on which printed circuit boards are manufactured. Circuit board designers rely on the critical electrical properties of the materials to design the interconnects, and with the drive toward IoT (internet of things), autonomous driving, and virtual and augmented reality, material properties take on a very high level of importance.