The Seminar and How You Will Benefit

The course starts off with an extensive overview about LTCC materials and their manufacturers. This information is valuable mainly for those companies that wish to introduce their own LTCC applications or products on the market, but cannot manufacture them on their own. In the second part, the manufacturing process of LTCC will be described. The individual steps beginning with cutting the "green" ceramic tape up to the firing/sintering of the multilayer stack are basically the same both in the prototype and serial production processes. Visiting the cleanroom facilities of IMST will help demonstrate the individual steps and will be the key to the understanding of the design requirements which will be dealt within the following sections.

The participants will be introduced to a number of applications which include single components, such as waveguides, junctions, filters, antennas, and other passive structures. In addition, the embedding of ICs will be demonstrated using amplifiers as an example. Next, LTCC Bluetooth modules at 2.45 GHz and two complete transmitter and receiver modules at 25 and 29 GHz will be discussed, clearly demonstrating the benefits and application capabilities, but also the challenges imposed by the LTCC technology. To design all these circuits, simulation tools are most essential. The analysis of 3D structures is carried out using highly complex methods. For that reason, commercially available programmes as CAD tools for multilayer circuit design will be introduced, giving some examples of how to use them. This includes layout design and verification. A high degree of automation is required to avoid errors being transferred from the design to the manufacturing process. In conclusion, methods will be introduced which are used to test LTCC material systems for their RF acceptability. This includes a comparison of different systems already carried out earlier, so that this can be seen as a guide leading through the available materials. The following list summarises the 5 main sections of the course:

• LTCC - A worldwide overview over material systems and manufacturing capabilities
• LTCC - Process steps and a visit to the prototype manufacturing site
• LTCC - Microwave applications in the communications and sensor technology
• LTCC - CAD tools for analogous RF multilayer circuits
• LTCC - Test structures and procedures for microwave applications

The Target Group

Participants are to receive the basic knowledge required for a successful development and manufacturing of LTCC modules for microwave applications. The course is therefore intended for decision-makers, development and process engineers and technicians engineering applications of the communications and sensor technology. Some keywords for typical applications are: GSM, UMTS, Bluetooth, WLAN, LMDS, ISM-band modules, radar and sensor technology.