3.1 Introduction

Ceramics and glasses are among the enabling technologies in nearly all electronics markets. Electronic data transmission with low signal attenuation is quite common using low-permittivity ceramics or glass matrix media in digital or analog modes throughout the radio and microwave frequency ranges. High-quality glass fibers have enabled high-volume data transmission at optical frequencies over long distances with minimal distortion of the original signal. Today, most long-distance telecommunication occurs through optical fibers in which data is transmitted via light through a glass fiber rather than electrons through a metal wire.

High-permittivity, electrically insulating ceramics are the necessary ingredient for the largest market segment of energy-storing capacitors. High-permittivity ceramics, which undergo a lattice distortion with applied field or output an electrical signal when stressed, are under active element for sonar technology and sonic imaging in medical applications. The development of processing techniques to form optically transparent, high-permittivity ceramics whose index of refraction can be modified by an applied electric field allows the creation of devices that are capable of modulating optical signals.

Applications for ferrite ceramics have expanded with the rapid growth of the electronics industry, and they include inductors, transformers, permanent magnets, magneto-optical devices, electromechanical devices, and microwave electronics devices. Superconducting ceramics, which allow conduction at virtually zero resistance, provide the opportunity to eliminate energy dissipation in power lines and generation of large magnetic fields for unique medical applications and zero-friction magnetic levitation devices and transportation systems.

3.2 Ceramic Interconnections for Microelectronics