Product category: Electronics Manufacturing Machinery and Materials
News Release from: StratEdge | Subject: Low cost commercial packages
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 12 January 2006

Packages help put RF
devices through their paces

Accel-RF is using a DC to 23GHz low cost commercial (LCC) package from StratEdge as a platform for life testing of high frequency devices

Accel-RF, San Diego, California, makes fully integrated, automated systems that characterise RF and DC performance degradation to predict device life expectancy. In addition to the package, StratEdge provides microelectronic assembly services to Accel-RF, including gold-tin eutectic die attachment and wire bonding.

During life testing, devices are subjected to temperatures of up to 250C while operating at high frequencies.

The devices need to be mounted in the test equipment, and the StratEdge package provides a convenient way of doing it.

As Accel-RF equipment is used to test devices of many configurations from different manufacturers, it is essential that the package used be flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of sizes.

The StratEdge 580286 LCC package has a 6.35 x 6.35mm cavity dimension that will accommodate most devices that need testing.

It features a flexible pinout of two RF leads and eight DC leads for easy connection of the device to the package.

The package combines a copper composite base with a patented microstrip-imbedded microstrip-microstrip transition design.

This composite metal base provides thermal conductivity and expansion compatible with compound semiconductor devices.

'We recommend StratEdge packages as a service to our customers', explained Accel-RF president Roland Shaw.

'It makes it easier because our customers don't have to develop a fixture or package'.

'StratEdge provides a commercially available package that fits all their needs and it's already characterised in Accel-RF's fixture'.

'All clamping and circuitry are set out for the pinout and footprint of the package'.

'Using these packages provides consistency, versatility, and they remove a variable in the testing process because of their exceptionally low loss performance'.

'Accel-RF's testers have become an essential tool for manufacturers of compound semiconductor devices', said Tim Going, President of StratEdge.

'Accel-RF's automated accelerated reliability test system measures, characterises, and records performance degradation and failure levels of RF devices in order to demonstrate and predict mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) and failure-in-time (FIT) probabilities at operating conditions'.

'The combination of being able to choose a standard StratEdge package and testing in Accel-RF's equipment helps to get product to market in the quickest most cost efficient way'.

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