Isola's Astra MT Materials Successfully Evaluated With Freescale Radar ICs

Chandler, AZ — Isola Group, a market leader in copper-clad laminates and dielectric prepreg materials used to fabricate advanced multilayer Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), announced today that its Astra  MT laminate materials have been successfully evaluated with Freescale® Semiconductor radar ICs. Freescale, a leader in Integrated Circuits (ICs) for ADAS 77 GHz radar, teamed with RFbeam Microwave to perform the evaluation. Isola will show the demonstration example in booth #1135 at the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2015.

The ultralow-loss Astra MT dielectric materials are ideal for patch antenna designs and RF front-end PCBs for 76 to 81 GHz radar applications. Astra MT materials enable a higher yield in RF-hybrid PCB manufacturing, reducing production costs. In conjunction with Freescale’s millimeter-wave radar chipset, the booth demonstration will highlight the reliable electrical performance in wide field-of-view radar applications for automotive systems.

Tarun Amla, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Isola stated, "We are very pleased with the verification and validation results for Astra MT materials on the Freescale reference design. Astra MT was engineered for harsh automotive environments and offers a very low cost of manufacturing, higher thermal reliability, better dimensional stability and it is available to customers worldwide."

Léon Audergon, Engineering Director at RFbeam Microwave GmbH stated, “Astra MT laminates were used without any modification with the Freescale radar ICs. We did not see any difference in the performance, compared with PTFE products, in our first attempt. The product offers ease of manufacturing compared to PTFE products, as it processes similarly to FR-4 materials."

Patrick Morgan, Director and General Manager of the ADAS Radar and Safety Business Unit at Freescale Semiconductor stated, “Freescale conducted a millimeter wave evaluation on Astra MT laminates, including measurements with the complete radar system. Measurements indicate that the very low-loss dielectric constant on Astra MT materials support the performance of Freescale radar ICs."

The demonstration example using Freescale radar ICs on Astra MT material will be featured at the Isola booth (#1135) at the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2015, May 17-22 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ.

Learn more about Astra MT materials here.

Freescale’s portfolio of radar ICs include the MR2001: Multi-channel 77 GHz Radar Transceiver Chipset. For more information, please visit Freescale’s Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Design Center.