Rogers’ Advanced Circuit-Material Solutions

Rogers Corporation and representatives of the Company’s Advanced Circuit Materials Division (ACM) will be present at the 2014 IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) June 3-5 to help attendees learn more about Rogers’ wide range of high frequency circuit materials. Rogers Advanced Circuit Materials Division is a global technology leader in the development of high performance printed circuit materials for use in a wide range of markets, including portable communications, automotive radar and sensors, communications infrastructure, aerospace and defense.

The RF/microwave industry’s largest annual event, IEEE IMS (www.ims2014.org), is being held June 1-6 in the Tampa Convention Center, Tampa, FL. In addition to its three-day exhibition June 3-5, the 2014 IEEE IMS features a full week of technical sessions. Rogers ACM representatives will be at booth #1833 offering guidance on the Company’s circuit material solutions. COOLSPAN® TECA Film, 2929 bondply, and RO4835™ circuit materials are a few of the newer products that will be highlighted during the exhibition.

Rogers’ Sr. Market Development Engineer John Coonrod, well-known author of many articles on circuit materials as well as the popular “ROG” blog series (www.rogerscorp.com/acm), will offer a Microwave Application Seminar (MicroApps) presentation on PCB materials at 9:35a.m. on Wednesday, June 4. In this presentation, “The Impact of Circuit Material Properties on Microwave PCB’s RF Heating Patterns,” he will explore how different circuit materials respond to high power and heat, especially at RF/microwave frequencies.

Rogers COOLSPAN TECA film is a thermally and electrically conductive adhesive that is designed for bonding circuit boards to heavy metal backplanes, heat sinks, and housings. The thermosetting, epoxy-based, silver-filled adhesive is a practical alternative to fusion bonding, sweat soldering, press-fit, and other mechanical approaches for attaching circuits to associated structures. COOLSPAN TECA film, which is supplied in sheet form on a PET carrier, is able to survive lead-free solder processing and offers outstanding chemical resistance and high temperature performance, helping you to keep things cool.

Rogers RO4835 high frequency laminates, specially formulated with improved oxidation resistance, were developed for applications needing a special level of electrical stability over time and temperature, while maintaining the cost advantages of a thermoset, FR-4 processable material. Just as with RO4350B™ material, RO4835 laminates offer a dielectric constant of 3.48 at 10 GHz, a low loss tangent of 0.0037 at 10 GHz, and a low z-axis coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) for excellent plated-through-hole (PTH) reliability under a variety of processing and operating conditions. These improved oxidation resistance circuit materials exhibit x- and y-axis expansion coefficients similar to that of copper. RO4835 laminates are RoHS-compliant, do not require special preparation, and can be processed using standard fabrication methods. Typical applications include automotive radar and sensors, point-to-point microwave backhaul units, power amplifiers and phased-array radar.

2929 bondply material is a thin adhesive film well suited to the design and fabrication of reliable multi-layer circuits in combination with high performance core materials, including Rogers RT/duroid®, RO3000® and RO4000® laminates. The unreinforced thermoset adhesive film is available in several thicknesses (1.5, 2, and 3 mils), and sheets can be stacked to achieve thicker adhesive layers as needed. It has a low dielectric constant of 2.94 and low dissipation factor of less than 0.003 at 10 GHz. This proprietary cross-linking resin system supports sequential lamination processing. The 2929 bondply material also features controlled flow characteristics for excellent blind via fill results. Typical applications include automotive radar and sensors, base station antennas, power amplifiers and point-to-point microwave backhaul units.