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Millimeter-Wave Complex Permittivity of Silica/Alumina-Filled Epoxy-Molding Compounds

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Abstract

Composite materials made of micron-sized oxide particle fillers in an epoxy resin matrix that can be molded into desired shapes are widely used for packaging radiofrequency and microwave-integrated circuits (ICs). To potentially employ these materials with millimeter-wave ICs (MMICs), quantitative knowledge of the composites’ dielectric properties across a broad millimeter-wave band is necessary. Here, we present non-destructive measurements of the complex relative permittivity, εr = ε′ + jε″, on some possible MMIC packaging composites consisting of silica and/or alumina microsphere fillers dispersed in an epoxy matrix. Measurements using phase-sensitive transmission over the WR3 and WR5 frequency bands (140 to 325 GHz) show that ε′ ranged from 3.6 for pure silica filler to 7.2 for pure alumina filler, with very little frequency dispersion. In all materials, the loss tangent tanδ = ε″/ε′ was between 0.01 and 0.02 in this frequency range. An analysis using the theory of two-component composites is used to extract the real permittivity of the epoxy resin. The results could be used to model performance of packaged MMICs and to design composites having a tailored value of ε′.

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Data Availability

Data used for Figs. 2, 3, and 4 are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author (M. L.).

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Acknowledgments

We thank Elaheh Motaharifar (UTD) for the help setting up the spectrometer, and acknowledge Ben Cook, Juan Herbsommer, Hassan Ali, and Meysam Moallem (all with Texas Instruments) for useful discussions on improving measurement technique and data interpretation.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Funding

This work was supported by Texas Instruments Inc. Foundational Technology Research Project on High Frequency Microsystems at the Texas Analog Center of Excellence, the University of Texas at Dallas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA

    Michael P. McGarry & Mark Lee

  2. Semiconducting Packaging, Technology & Manufacturing Group, Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, TX, 75243, USA

    Enis Tuncer

  3. Texas Analog Center of Excellence, The University of Texas at Dallas,, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA

    Mark Lee

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  1. Michael P. McGarry
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Contributions

M. P. M. set up the spectrometer, took the data, and analyzed the data. E. T. made the sample tiles and analyzed the data. M. L. designed the spectrometer, conceived the experiment, and analyzed the data.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark Lee.

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Conflicts of Interest

M. P. M. and M. L. declare no conflicts of interest or competing interests. E. T. is employed by the funding source, Texas Instruments Inc.

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McGarry, M.P., Tuncer, E. & Lee, M. Millimeter-Wave Complex Permittivity of Silica/Alumina-Filled Epoxy-Molding Compounds. J Infrared Milli Terahz Waves 41, 1189–1198 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10762-020-00730-1

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