Development of microwave multilayer plastic-based multichip modules

We present the design and development of multilayer plastic-based multichip modules (MCM) at microwave frequencies. A vertical feed-through interconnect, which consists of embedded copper wires in plastic, has been developed to transport RF/microwave and dc signals from the first to the second packaging level. The development of this vertical feed-through enables plastic modules to be configured in a surface mount topology that can be interfaced with low cost FR-4 boards using ball grid arrays (BGA). The experimental analysis results demonstrate that this vertical feed-through used with BGAs has ultra-low parasitics and achieves a return loss of greater than 20-dB at 4-GHz. In addition, we demonstrate a number of packaged active microwave circuits including a switch, a low noise amplifier (LNA) and a power amplifier using the plastic module technology at microwave frequencies