Thick Film Techniques for Microwave Integrated Circuits

A thick film approach to state-of-the-art microwave integrated circuits, which has been used to produce thousands of highly reliable low cost S-band and L-band solid state modules for production radar systems is described. These modules include low-noise amplifiers, double conversion mixers, interdigital filters, multiple port power dividers and switches, phase encoders, and power amplifiers. A discussion of the fabrication and microwave properties of thick film conductors, resistors, and capacitors is given along with photographs and performance data of various microwave integrated circuit modules that accumulated over a million device hours in operation without a failure.