Advances in ceramic packaging for power amplifiers

Abstract

Power Amplifiers (PAs) for the past few years have been going through a drastic evolution in terms of packaging size and materials. Recent trends have seen the conversion from plastic molding packaging concepts of sizes from .5 to 1.0 CC to functional ceramic substrates incorporating matching circuits miniaturized to sizes of less than .02 CCs. In this paper PA packaging made of multilayer glass-ceramic materials incorporating matching circuits was manufactured. By utilizing a multilayer three-dimensional inductor filter design, a PA matching circuit with excellent electrical characteristics was produced.