Ceramic sealing breakthrough for electronics packages
A GSTP activity has made a breakthrough in miniaturising High Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (HTCC) packaging for radiofrequency devices.
The current trend towards miniaturisation in the electronics and communication sectors is on the rise, creating demands for packaging solutions with increasingly complex requirements. Since possibilities for reducing the size of conventional glass-to-metal seals have been nearly exhausted, it has become necessary to develop new and innovative approaches.
Ceramic-to-metal sealing represents one such approach, offering solutions to miniaturization, cost saving, batch processing, RF applications, higher geometric accuracy and screen printing solutions. But this process still has the potential for further development.
The project planned to use established ceramic technology from a well-known volume package supplier and optimise this for cost effective batch packaging manufacturing and ESA MHIC (microwave hybrid integrated circuit) verified assembly line processes.
To ensure the necessary performance level and stability of the packages throughout the ECSS qualification program, the HTCC packages were subjected to extensive mechanical, assembly, endurance and space operating environmental tests. The first simulation and evaluation tests showed promising results. The HTCC MHIC devices exhibited very good performance, identical to the previously used MHIC Ring & Base devices.
The results represent a breakthrough in the technology maturity and application readiness of HTCC MHIC RF devices.
GSTP contract G617-157QT with TESAT-SpaceCOM (DE) closed in December 2018.