Click here to go to our page on rectax
New for October 2019. The PolyStrata® process is a registered trademark of Nuvotronics, which is a subsidiary of Cubic Corporation since March 2019. Microwaves101 doesn't usually provide information on specific company's wares, but in this case we make an exception due to the exceptional nature of the technology. Weirdly, there is no PolyStrata Process page on Wikipedia, unless you include the page on Mesozoic Life in Arizona... The word "PolyStrata", with the P and S capitalized, is trademarked, like the word Legos. Therefore you are required to put a ® after it, at least the first time you insert it onto a written page. Also, it is supposed to be used as an adjective, not as a noun. How do we know this? Let's just say someone here is "Experienced".
PolyStrata® is a planar process (oops, used it as a noun!) that plates up pure copper using a patented thick photoresist. There are dozens of papers published on components and systems that leverage the technology. Key characteristics are high isolation between adjacent transmissions lines, low loss (particularly at millimeterwave frequencies) and extremely tight tolerances (a few microns).
Search the IEEExplore database for "PolyStrata" and you will currently find 35 papers with this keyword in the title.
Below, Professor Popovic provides and outsider's opinion of PolyStrata process, untainted by marketting jive. There is way more in the video (over an hour!) If you rewind to the beginning, she gives a great overview of microwave active circuits from the point of view of University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB).
High Performance Microwave Active Circuits for Some Interesting Applications by Dr. Zoya Popovic
Some researchers ignore patents and intellectual property... Here is a published example of a "PolyStrata" delay line made in Singapore. Funny thing that the IEEE didn't reject the paper, it should have referenced prior work.
Yang Tian, Kokyan Lee and Hong Wang, " A 390 ps On-Wafer True-Time-Delay Line Developed by a Novel Micro-Coax Technology, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, Volume 24, Issue 4 , April 2014.
In 2019, the IMS awarded Best Industry Paper to Jared Jordan, for his talk on "Monolithically Fabricated 4096-Element, PolyStrata® Broadband D-band Array Demonstrator".
https://www.cubic.com/news-events/news/cubics-nuvotronics-wins-best-industry-paper-award
If you are interested in this technology as a customer or as an employee, just do the google...