Ceramics are one of the more difficult materials to fabricate into complex morphologies and are challenging to employ. Low or High Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCC/HTCC) have a wide range of applications in different fields of electronics and microsystem applications. LTCC/HTCC devices are manufactured by applying conductive, dielectric, and resistive metal pastes on each ceramic substrate sheet or tape as needed and then pressed together in a specified sequence, laminating them together. This ceramic sheet of printed metal is then fired or sintered which takes place at temperature below 1000°C for LTCC and above 1000°C for HTCC. The resulting package is a multilayer, three-dimensional design that is considerably more compact than a traditional planar microsystems component.
The multilayer-ceramic technology offers exceptional capabilities for the manufacturing of packages, printed circuit boards, and microsystems. The ceramic multilayer technology (e.g. LTCC/HTCC) even enhances these advantages because of its ability (i) for a complex 3D miniaturization with embedded deformable bodies (cantilever, diaphragms), channels and cavities as well as (ii) for the realization of hybrid components with integrated dielectric, conducting, magnetic, piezoelectric and sensorial materials, being (iii) very robust against environmental stress, and providing (iv) outstanding high-frequency qualities (εR, tan δ) in combination with a very good thermomechanical adaptation to typical semiconductors..
A cost-effective solution for producing small quantities and individualized products economically is to employ digital printing technologies like inkjet or aerosol jet. These printing techniques are maskless and are entirely additive, making them incredibly adaptable. The combination of both printing technologies enables large-area and simultaneously precise structuring of multilayer ceramics on the one hand, and the creation of three-dimensional structures on the other. These deposition techniques together with co-printing and co-firing possibility further enables the integration of further passive components such as resistors, coils and capacitors, which enables complete sensor systems and packaging in a very compact design and fast development time.
A special feature are the dielectric ceramic inks based on LTCC, which replace conventional ceramic green films. This increases the flexibility of the manufacturing process, the geometric degree of freedom and the achievable integration density.