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High-Q RF Devices in APEX® Glass
Tim Foster
Director of Sales and Marketing
Tim.Foster@3DGlassSolutions.com
303-775-4994
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The Possibilities….
With our material you can:
 Reduce your package size by 66%
 Increase your data transfer by 10x
 Decrease power consumption by 10x
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APEX® Glass Overview
 Overcome the limitations of today’s traditional RF packaging
options such as laminates, sapphire, and alumina
 Low cost batch processing
 Low surface roughness mitigates current crowding on rough surfaces
 Easily integrate with thin film passive component manufacturing
 APEX® Glass is a great material for microwave and
millimeter wave frequencies
 Produce highly complex designs with simple manufacturing
process
Top down view of 60
micron diameter TGVs
 Integrate vias, cavities, trenches, and cutouts into one package
 Easily produce Through Glass Vias (TGVs) with
copper filling for any electronic design
 Dielectric Constant @3GHz: 6.58
 Loss Tangent @3GHz: 0.0086
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Cross Section of TGV filled
with electroplated copper
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Why APEX® Glass?
 APEX® Glass is the only glass material capable of easily
producing highly complex High-Q and antenna features for
Microwave and Millimeter Wave applications.
 Examples include:
 High-Q designs for RF electronics
 Phased array antennas
 Integrated transceiver designs
 Integrated thin film passive device manufacturing
 Our simple processing approach ensures micron-scaled
precision of finished features
 Semiconductor like batch processing capabilities ensure
cost-effective product solutions
 Achieve the results your customers are demanding
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APEX® Glass is easily
integrated with standard
RDL and thin film
integration methods
Create on chip antenna
architectures on APEX®
Glass
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Overview of Capabilities
 APEX® Glass is the only glass approach to making advanced HighQ structures
Glass Supported Line
35μm wide, 13μm thick
free floating line
75μm Etch Relief Depth
Glass Supported Line
EMI Shielding Copper Filled TGV
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Analysis of What is Possible
Etched Floor
Free Floating
Copper Line
Un-Etched
Glass
EMI Copper
Vias
Measurement of Feature Heights
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Design Rules
Glass thickness
 From 150um up to 1mm in thickness
 Wafer level production using 100, 150, and 200mm wafers
Through Glass Vias (TGVs) Design
 TGVs as small as 25μm in diameter
 With 10:1 aspect ratios
 TGV filling with 100% electroplated copper
 Use for IC connections and EMI shielding
Surface Metallization
 Line widths as small as 30 microns
 Line thicknesses up to 20μm
 Surface roughness as low as 40nm Ra
 Metals: Gold or Copper
 Low resistance thin films such as NiCr and TiW
Etch relief
 Achieve depths up to 150um deep
 Line supports on ceramic or glass.
EMI Shielding TGVs
 EMI-shielding TGVs connect top and bottom structures
 TGVs critical dimensions (CD) as small as 25μm
 TGV lengths up to 8 times CD size
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In Conclusion
 APEX® Glass is a low cost alternative to traditional microwave
and millimeter wave substrates
 APEX® is compatible with silicon thin film technologies for the
integration of passive components
Thin film inductors, resistors, and capacitor components
 Batch processing ensures large manufacturing capacity
 Want to learn more about…call us….capacity is filling up fast
Material within the presentation are the property of 3D Glass Solutions, © 3D Glass Solutions