Figure 6 Comparison of power density between CVD diamond and standard ceramic substrates.
CVD synthetic diamond has outstanding thermal conductivity, 3 to 4x better than copper. In addition, the low dielectric constant makes CVD diamond an excellent RF dielectric material for high frequency and high-power applications. The comparison of power density between CVD diamond and standard ceramic substrates is shown in Figure 6.
The mechanical and electrical characteristics of CVD diamond are excellent for making passive components, like resistors, terminations and attenuators. Using CVD material and advanced thin film processing techniques, these passive components can withstand even the most challenging space environment. Hence, these components are used in many aerospace, military and commercial applications.
The high thermal conductivity of CVD material allows for small size chips to be designed that can operate above 40 GHz and still dissipate over 10 W of CW power. In addition, for CW applications, these passive components are excellent for pulsed power applications. Res-Net manufactures diamond resistors, terminations and attenuators. Example resistors range from DC to 30 GHz, 20 W to DC to 18 GHz, 150 W devices, and terminations ranging from DC to 6 GHz, 300 W to DC to 26.5 GHz, 50 W devices.
