A Chip-First Microwave Package Using Multimaterial Aerosol Jet Printing

We show in this article two fully additively manufactured microwave packages with integrated active and passive components. Packages were constructed using a chip-first approach where package substrates (dielectrics) and interconnects (conductors) are built up around power amplifier bare die attached to carriers. Bypass capacitor dielectrics were printed using multimaterial aerosol jet printing, where aerosols of barium titanate and polyimide inks are mixed in place to fabricate a high dielectric constant polymer matrix nanocomposite film. The material properties of the film are characterized using three printed capacitors. We present S-parameter measurements to characterize small-signal performance, as well as load-pull measurements at the saturated output power. Finally, we demonstrate package performance after power cycling and temperature cycling to show the effect of aging on the part and the robustness of this packaging strategy. We measured a maximum packaged gain of 21.7 dB and a saturated output power of 21.9 dBm for a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) medium power amplifier specified to have a gain of 22 dB and a saturated output power of 22 dBm. The printed package-level performance is compared with the published bare die performance and a measured COTS packaged amplifier.