RF SiP technologies enabling wireless modules

With the increasing penetration of wireless systems their requirements become more stringent than ever: smaller size, weight, higher bandwidth and frequencies and lower power consumption at an ever-decreasing cost are driving technologies to its limits. In this overview paper, the requirements, capabilities and limitations of board technologies and thin film technologies will be discussed and illustrated by various integration examples that were realized at imec over the past years. The evolution towards 3D solutions, pushed by the drive for high performance and small form factors, is enabled especially by technologies that build further on semiconductor technology platforms.