Microwave Circuits Characterization on Carbon Fibre (CFRP) based Carrier plates

This article details the indigenous development of CFRP based carrier plates for possible replacement of standard Kovar based carrier plates employed in front-end RF circuits at microwave frequencies. The development encompasses fabrication of CFRP based carrier plates, plating of the assembly, temperature trials, attachment and assembly of the substrates along with the RF characterization. The front-end of RF circuits consists amplifier, filter which are realized on alumina substrate. The assembly is attached to the developed gold plated CFRP carrier plates. The resulting structure achieved six times weight reduction compared to standard topology without any performance degradation. The development encompasses process details, comparative analysis, various trials along with performance characterization.