Avago RF VMMK Devices Improve Performance By Reducing Parasitic Inductance And Capacitance

Packaging has always significantly impacted on microwave IC and amplifier performance. In most cases, the inherent parasitic capacitance and inductance of the package lead frame and wire bonds set a limit to circuit performance. Avago Technologies developed a bonded-wafer-to-wafer package technology in 2004 and now offers innovative microwave gallium arsenide (GaAs) VMMK devices based on the proprietary WaferCAP™ chip scale package. Surfacemount (SMT), very low cost VMMK amplifier and FET devices are available today and soon to be released diodes and detectors will be added to the VMMK series.

Integration Creates Compact CDMA RF Front End with GPS Capability 

In this whitepaper, design requirements, best practice PCB layout, component selection and system design will be addressed. A highly integrated CDMA plus GPS RF front end design with measured performance characteristics will be used as a concrete example. The three Avago RF modules used are: the ACPM-7353 dual-band Power Amplifier Module designed for CDMA (code division multiple access) cellular and PCS; the ACFM-7103 multiplexer; and the ALM-1412 GPS Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with Integrated Filter. These three compact components replace seven discrete components. 

GaAs-Based Surface Mount Wafer Scale Package MMICs for DC to 45 GHz Applications 

Packaging has always been the "Achilles Heal" of extracting the maximum microwave performance out of any IC technology. The inherent parasitic capacitance and inductance associated with bond wires, lead frames, and encapsulating dielectric materials dominate the final products high frequency performance. One way to solve this problem is to eliminate parasitic causing factors and make the IC become the package. This is the basis of WSP (Wafer Scale Packaging).