For measuring the dielectric properties of substrate materials, Compass Technology Group and Copper Mountain Technologies (CMT) have developed an epsilometer measurement solution to characterize sheet specimens from 0.3 to 3 mm thick and frequencies from 3 MHz to 6 GHz. The test system combines a measurement fixture with CMT’s R60 VNA and software, Epsilometer software and a calibration sample.
The dielectric analyzer measures the complex dielectric permittivity (epsilon) with a simple, nondestructive methodology: a material specimen is inserted into the device and scanned to obtain its microwave response versus frequency. Unlike other dielectric analysis methods, the epsilometer method uses computational electromagnetic modeling to invert the dielectric permittivity and loss. A database in the epsilometer software is used for the computation and handles permittivity values up to 25.
This technique is a significant advance over conventional capacitive methods, which use analytical approximations and are limited to frequencies below 1 GHz. The computational-based inversion enables a simplified calibration procedure, making the device easy to use, even for engineers and technicians without microwave experience.
The epsilometer measurement solution combines Compass Technology Group’s expertise characterizing microwave materials with Copper Mountain Technologies’ metrology-grade portable network analyzers to offer an innovative solution for measuring the dielectric properties of materials. The system can be used during the design and manufacturing of microwave and antenna substrates, antenna radomes and packaging materials, and frequency coverage to 6 GHz supports the major wireless standards, including LTE, sub-6 GHz 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IoT and GPS.
Copper Mountain Technologies
Indianapolis, In.
www.coppermountaintech.com
Compass Technology Group
Alpharetta, Ga.
www.compasstech.com