Characterization of Electromagnetic Properties of Molded Interconnect Device Materials

The use of the molded interconnect device technology combined with the laser direct structuring technology exhibits the potential of designing electrical and mechanical components on three-dimensional surfaces to increase functionality, level of integration and to reduce costs. When taking advantage of these technologies especially in the design of RF devices, a precise knowledge of the electromagnetic parameters of the MID material is required, as the complex permeability and permittivity strongly influence the device performance. At present time, these materials are not electromagnetically characterized in the RF frequency range. Therefore this paper presents a broadband electromagnetic characterization of an exemplarily chosen molded interconnect device material. On the basis of the measurement results a first simple antenna design is realized and its measured and simulated input reflection coefficients are compared.