Recently, millimeter-wave devices have been attracted more attentions in applications owing to their short wavelengths, higher resolutions, broader bandwidths and higher environmental tolerance. The great challenges of high fabrication and assembly costs, bulky volumes, and heavy weights of millimeter-wave systems call for new integrated manufacturing techniques. The hot embossing technique could address these challenges. In this paper, a review of micro plastic hot embossing was given for the fabrication of miniaturized millimeter-wave systems. The micro hot embossing on plastic materials demonstrated its advantages on significant costs, volume and weight reduction, while maintaining high performances. We have designed, fabricated and characterized a W-band rectangular waveguide and a W-band iris waveguide filter with integrated plastic flanges using micro hot embossing and selective electroplating. In this paper, we reviewed the results and discussed the design methodology in details for the micromachined components. The prototype devices showed promise for the system designs.

Date Published: 5 January 2006
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 6035, Microelectronics: Design, Technology, and Packaging II, 60350S (5 January 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.638259

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6035:
Microelectronics: Design, Technology, and Packaging II
Alex J. Hariz, Editor(s)