Packaging, assembly, and interconnects

Updated January 13, 2007

Click here to go to our new page on microwave circuit cards

Click here to go to our new page on microwave printed wiring boards

Click here to go to our page on hybrid modules

Click here to go to our page on electrostatic discharge (ESD)

This will serve as our main page from which we will branch out and cover some packaging topics in-depth. This chapter is gonna be huge, but without some help from engineers like you it will take some time to construct. If you want fame and fortune, send us some material to add, like Nameless Insider from New Jersey did!

Here's a book recommendation for the topic of packaging:

Advanced Electronic Packaging, by Richard K. Ulrich and William D. Brown is an encyclopedia effort with a treasure-trove of information on various material's parameters, different interconnect schemes, design, fabrication and assembly of hardware, not just microwave (which we consider a plus!) Look for it soon on our book page.

Microwave packaging is often broken into two broad categories: modules (often called hybrids) and circuit card assemblies. The intent of the two approaches is best summarized as this:

Use a hybrid module is you want bulletproof reliability,

Use a circuit card assembly if you want cheap.

If you are developing prototype modules in a lab, chances are you will take a lot of short cuts and not worry about half the stuff on this page. But if you intend to design something for production, you should learn as much as you can about production packaging processes.

A really great book on packaging is Advanced Electronic Packaging, by Richard K. Ulrich and William D. Brown. It is one of the best "encyclopedia" efforts we've seen, and we've seen a lot of lame ones. Look for it on our book page.

Some possible future topics:

Advanced interconnects such as flip-chip

Near-hermetic packaging