RF Circuit Realisation Using Thick Film Technology

Thick film technology is mostly employed at lower frequency circuits such as hybrid micro circuits due to the associated losses of the paste. The characterisation and implementation of the conductive paste at higher frequencies is important so as to employ this technique at higher frequencies. Also the role of ceramic substrate due to higher dielectric losses needs detailed measurement to deduce the useful range of this technique with the selected paste. In this article simple transmission line using the thick film technology is fabricated, characterised and result of the thick and thin film technologies are compared. Subsequently RF circuits such as filter are fabricated using both thick and thin film fabrication technology and comparative analysis carried out. The line losses of 0.01 dB/cm up till 5 GHz is achieved using the standard gold paste. This article details the fabrication process, implementation methodology, design aspects, simulation and comparative analysis of the microstrip circuits such as transmission line and band pass filter.