Spectrum Control, a leading provider of miniature, modular, and intelligent RF components and solutions, demonstrated a revolutionary reduction in the size of high performance, anti-aliasing filters to complement its emerging class of Direct RF solutions. In cooperation with 3D Glass Solutions, Spectrum Control has developed a family of surface-mount, BGA devices from 500 MHz to 10 GHz with wafer-scale manufacturing on glass substrates. These new filters boast a physical size of only 2.6 x 5.4 mm.
The company is launching a family of standard filters for low-pass, high-pass and band-pass ap-plications, with custom derivatives available for any frequency requirement from 500 MHz to 10 GHz. The initial filter in the family will be on display for the first time in the Spectrum Control booth (#208) during IMS 2024 in Washington, D.C. Future products will include mmWave filters and interconnects up to 300 GHz.
“This is a foundational building block for our SCi Blocks™ family of products,” said Jeff Miner, chief technologist for RF solutions at Spectrum Control. “The ability to manufacture solenoidal high-Q inductor structures in glass delivers unrivaled filter performance in an extremely small footprint and will have a profound impact on the miniaturization of RF solutions. By using wafer-scale manufacturing in glass, we can achieve an extremely high correlation between our simulations and the manufactured product. And even with tight fabrication tolerances we see negligible unit-to-unit variations.”
The showcase product for this launch is a 4 GHz IF filter, MMG-4000-2000-B, available in a 2.6 x 5.4 mm (0.100” x 0.210”) BGA package. It has a pass-band from 3 to 5 GHz with mid-band insertion loss of 2.2 dB and group delay of 0.8 ns over a temperature range of -55° C to 125° C. Stop-band suppression is greater than 60 dBc from DC - 2.5 GHz and 5.8 to 15 GHz, typical 15 percent from the band edges (see Table 1 for MMG-4000-2000-B specifications).
“Spectrum Control is delivering on its promise to radically shrink the RF front end and achieve a whole new level of mass affordability/affordable mass in the RF industry,” commented Ian Dunn, chief technology officer. “We are enabling a new era of SWaP-C in the RF industry by reducing footprints, minimizing integration efforts, and leveraging volume manufacturing.”
Collaboration with 3D Glass Solutions
After an extensive survey of the market, Spectrum Control selected 3D Glass Solutions to de-velop the filters. The dielectric and reliability properties and promise of glass, the precision of 3D Glass’s semiconductor manufacturing capabilities to create miniature 3D RF structures in glass, and finally its world-class US foundry aligned with national objectives to on-shore key technology building blocks in line with the country’s national security priorities were all factors in the selection process.
“We are pleased to be a manufacturing partner with Spectrum Control for these RF filters. Spectrum Control’s engineering team is exercising key features of our 3D glass technology to achieve RF miniaturization that is game-changing for the industry” said Jeb H. Flemming, chief technology officer, 3D Glass Solutions.