"Unleash the RF/Microwaves!" There was an a recent ad in the Microwave Journal that proclaimed this, but it could be the rallying cry at the 2012 International Microwave Symposium (IMS), held June 18-22 in Montreal. This can conjure up all sorts of mental pictures—from concern and fear, to the uninitiated, to excitement and optimism to those attending the conference in preparation for the next wave of wireless and microwave applications.
My first personal recollections of the term "microwave" goes back to that space-aged unit my mom bought back in the 1960s to reheat dinner leftovers and heat up those new microwavable meals. In remembering back to my Navy days, I was a sonar man immersed in the world of sound waves and their propagation. However, there were sailors on board who worked with microwave systems that were used to guide our weapons systems, provide our communications and jam the enemies' systems. At that time, we had little knowledge of how these systems truly worked. Only a healthy awareness of not going “aloft” when these units were in operation and lots of sea stories of what could happen to you if you were to have the misfortune to do so. These stories were probably a result of our limited knowledge of how the systems really worked and the lack of practical knowledge of what truly happened to those microwave dinners when you set the timer for too long.
Today—while there has been some slowing of spending for the powerful military systems—there are more emerging applications for RF and microwave applications for the commercial world. The smart phone/high-resolution-driven products today require more and more data to be sent via wireless from system to system. We have gone from cellular 2G, 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G, 4G and now the 4GLTE. We are transferring data through space at 100Gbps. There are emerging applications that will require even more bandwidth and push wireless even further. There are also plenty of “green” applications emerging including using solar, wind and fluid to power wireless monitoring of just about every type of system you can imagine. These new applications are driving engineers to also reduce size and, of course, cost to build the microelectronics parts. This can be very challenging because of the materials involved and will require greater accuracy and precision from assembly processes.
The RF and microwave markets are characterized by lower volume and higher mix when compared to semiconductor packaging. This requires different levels of manual and automatic assembly process steps depending on product and manufacturing maturity. Suppliers can help customers through the various stages of manufacturing automation by providing manual, semi-automatic, and fully automatic islands and lines of equipment and process.
Although there is continued effort in the semiconductor packaging industry to reduce package size along with the never-ending pursuit of cost savings, there remain a significant number of applications requiring a wildly different set of capabilities for die and wire bonding.
Download "RF, Microwave, and Optoelectronic Packaging Die and Wire Bonding Case Studies" to take a deeper look at varying die attach and wire bonding requirements for emerging applications in the RF and microwave markets. The paper discusses three case studies:
- RF-SOE Product (High Accuracy Die Bond + Semi/Automatic Wire Bond)
- Optoelectronic Printer Product (Ultra Accuracy Die Bond)
- High Brightness LED Matrix Product(High Accuracy Die + Semi/Auto Chain Wire)
It was a great week in Montreal. IMS 2012 was well attended and provided an overall a sense of optimism even in these tough economical times. Palomar looks forward to IMS 2013, held in Seattle, WA, USA. "Unleash the RF/Microwaves!"
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Dale Perry
Regional Sales Manager, Eastern Americas
Palomar Technologies