Beyond Design: Radiation and Interference Coupling
Elementary, Mr. Watson: Design Data Packages—Circle of Concern or Circle of Influence?
Fresh PCB Concepts: The Power of a Lunch & Learn for PCB Professionals
Material Selection and RF Design
April 21, 2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineEstimated reading time: 1 minute
Innovation rarely sleeps in this industry, and the RF laminate segment offers a perfect example. RF materials have continued to evolve, providing PCB designers much more than an either/or choice. I asked materials expert Alun Morgan, technology ambassador for the Ventec International Group, to walk us through the available RF material sets and how smart material selection can ease the burden on RF designers and design engineers.
Andy Shaughnessy: Alun, just give us a quick refresher: How are RF materials different from traditional PCB laminates?
Alun Morgan: RF covers a broad range of frequencies, often defined as the spectrum from 3 KHz to 300 GHz. At the low end, traditional materials are fine; however, the influence of the material becomes much more critical as frequency increases.
Shaughnessy: How does RF differ from HSD (high-speed digital)?
Morgan: They are two different worlds, with very different design requirements. RF is primarily concerned with the propagation of analog waveforms, whereas HSD is primarily concerned with the transmission of binary digital bitstreams. Each has its particular benefits and drawbacks. The good news is that materials designed for high-speed digital applications are also generally suitable for high-frequency analog circuits.
Shaughnessy: What do PCB designers moving into the RF space need to understand about material selection?
Morgan: There are some very specific electrical properties that are important when selecting materials for RF or HSD applications. The first is the dielectric constant (Dk) of the material. The Dk is the ability of the substrate to store electric energy in an electrical field. It is a dimensionless property and is quoted as a value relative to a vacuum, which has a Dk of 1. Why does it matter? It matters because it determines transmission speed and must be accounted for when calculating the timing and synchronization of high-speed signals; it is also crucial for impedance matching and control. The Dk is very much a design consideration, and specific designs may require higher or lower values.
To read this entire article, which appeared in the April 2025 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.
Share on:
Suggested Items
American Made Advocacy: Lobbying Congress Supports the Supply Chain
05/27/2025 | Shane Whiteside -- Column: American Made AdvocacyThe upheaval in world markets is driving daily headlines. The global supply chain has seemed “normal” for the microelectronics industry because over the past three decades, an increasing percentage of microelectronics components and materials have been made overseas. For many years, other countries, primarily in Asia, invested heavily in their microelectronics industry while U.S. companies offshored manufacturing services in pursuit of the lowest cost.
Dymax to Showcase Light-Cure Solutions at The European Battery Show 2025
05/23/2025 | Dymax CorporationDymax, a global manufacturer of rapid light-curing materials and equipment, will exhibit at The European Battery Show 2025 in Stand 4-C60
Pioneering Energy-Efficient AI with Innovative Ferroelectric Technology
05/22/2025 | FraunhoferAs artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into sectors such as healthcare, autonomous vehicles and smart cities, traditional computing architectures face significant limitations in processing speed and energy efficiency
Self-Healing Materials Could Unlock the Potential of Tomorrow’s Technology, Reports IDTechEx
05/22/2025 | IDTechExA sci-fi movie trope is the virtually indestructible robot, capable of operating without rest due to extended battery life, able to interact with its surroundings like a human thanks to advanced soft robotic components, and fully autonomous due to an extensive suite of sensors.
STMicroelectronics Announces Expanded "Lab-in-Fab" Collaboration in Singapore to Advance Piezoelectric MEMS Technology
05/22/2025 | STMicroelectronicsSTMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, in collaboration with the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics (A*STAR IME) and ULVAC, announces the expansion of the “Lab-in-Fab” (LiF) in Singapore.