Integrated passives in advanced printed wiring boards

This paper will focus on the work which was carried out under the Brite-EuRAM funded project, COMPRISE (BE 96-3371), the objective of which was to develop new materials and manufacturing processes to embed passive components (resistors, inductors, capacitors) within printed wiring structures fabricated from laminate materials. For the realisation of integrated resistors, a commercially available planar resistor material is incorporated in different test structures. The technology consists of a copper foll of standard thickness on which a resistive layer is deposited by means of electroless plating. For the realisation of capacitors in multi-layered PCB structures, significant progress was made in the development and fabrication of very thin laminates. Higher dielectric constants of these laminate materials enable the increase of the capacitance per unit area. For inductors, both aircore (no magnetic material) and magnetic core components have been investigated.