Highlights

The author wishes to thank Elvira Tamm for the thermomechanical and base material quality tests, Alexander Ippich for the electrical property discussions and Dr Craig Davidson for editing the paper. This paper was presented at the EIPC Winter Conference Obliqueheld in Cannes, France, 12 and 13 February 2004 and is produced here with the kind permission of the EIPC. Copies of the conference proceedings are available from the EIPC, contact Sonja Derhaag at sderhaag@eipc.org for more details.

Sylvia Ehrler
High frequency PCB base materials a comparison of thermomechanical properties

Keywords

Printed-circuit boards, Thermal properties of materials

Abstract

There is increasing customer demand for materials with low dissipation factors for reduced loss along the traces and low dielectric constants for higher signal propagation speeds. High performance epoxies such as Nelco s N4000-13, Isola s FR408 and General Electric s GETEK (similar to Matsushita s MEGTRON) have become essential for boards operating in the higher frequency range. For applications at the highest frequencies material choices are very limited. These materials, tailored for high frequency use, have disadvantages either with their thermomechanical properties or with their processability. Recently, a number of new high frequency or low loss materials have been introduced by different suppliers. In an overall relatively small but growing market, these materials have to demonstrate their advantages from an electrical, thermomechanical, processing, fabrication quality and/or cost...