Calculation of electrical parameters of a thin-film multichip package

The calculations of the electrical parameters of a thin-film multichip package are presented. It is shown that a commonly used 2-D device simulator, PISCES, can be used to compute the electrical parameters of the thin-film lines up to a frequency where the skin effect is important. For trapezoidal conductor cross-sections, it is shown that the maximum variations of self- and mutual (coupling) capacitances are within 10% of their corresponding rectangular values when the sidewall angle of the conductor is varied up to 30°, and the line cross-section area is kept constant. For the case when the conductor base is kept constant, the variation in mutual capacitance is found to be within 30% and that for self-capacitance is found to be within 12% when the sidewall angle is varied up to 30°. A simple R-L-C circuit is used to represent a three-conductor lossy transmission line system, and SPICE is used to analyze the responses in the time domain. A thin-film multichip package design is briefly outlined. A HP-8510 network analyzer is used to verify the simulation results