Glass-free low-temperature cofired ceramics: calcium germanates, silicates and tellurates

To reduce the complexity of LTCC systems, and so accelerate the development of LTCC tapes with new functionalities, it is necessary to reduce the number of phases within a particular tape. This can best be done by using glass-free single-phase ceramic systems. We performed a basic characterization of several low-temperature-sintered calcium silicates, germanates and tellurates in order to evaluate their potential as glass-free low-permittivity substrate LTCC materials. Special attention was focused on their microwave and 1 MHz dielectric properties, their sintering behavior and their compatibility with Ag. Two Ca-germanates, which were found to be the most interesting for LTCC applications exhibit a permittivity of ∼10 and low dielectric losses; however, the temperature dependence of permittivity and the sintering temperature must be further reduced. For CaGeO3 the temperature dependence of permittivity was fully suppressed by the addition of 10 mol% of CaTiO3.