Thick-film technology

The use of ceramic printed circuit boards offers many advantages over conventional electronic printed circuit boards (PCB).

The thermal conductivity of ceramics is far superior to that of PCBs:

• PCB: 0.3 W/mK
• Al₂O₃ ceramics: 25 W/mK
• AlN ceramics: 180 W/mK

Ceramic carriers are often packaged with bare dice (pure silicon semiconductors without housing). Silicon and thick-film ceramics follow similar thermal expansion (CTE) patterns. This, in turn, means a longer service life in particular for high thermal requirements and thermal cycling.

For use with open semiconductors, they are contacted on the ceramic (or PCB) by wire bonding. For use with encapsulated Surface-Mounted Device (SMD) components, this wire bonding is already implemented in the semiconductor component. Using open semiconductors halves the number of contact points, thereby making the circuit more reliable.

• Substrate materials: Al₂O₃ (standard) or aluminum nitride ceramics (AlN)
• Size: 4 x 4 inch (standard) up to 6.5 x 4.5 inch
• Thickness: 0.635 mm (standard); 0.250 mm to 3.000 mm
• Number of conducting path layers: up to 8 conducting path layers per side, two-sided printing (standard)
• Conducting path widths / distances: 0.15 mm / 0.15 mm (standard), ≥ 0.08 mm (pure silk-screen printing), ≥ 0.025 mm (via etching technology)
• Conducting path materials: Au, AgPd, AgPt, PtAu
• Integrated resistors: 0.5 Ohm to 100 MOhm (tolerance ≥0.1 %, per laser trimming)
• Hermetic through-connections
• Isolation voltage up to 2,500 V DC
• Platinum-based conducting paths for Platinum thermistors

We offer additional substrate materials as well, e. g. different strengths of steel.