LOW COST AgENIG® THICK FILM SUBSTRATES

Remtec Inc. has developed and commercialized a proprietary process for manufacturing cost effective metallized ceramic substrates that are an economic substitute for currently used expensive thick film materials containing platinum/palladium and are RoHS compliant. AgENIG® (silver with ENIG finish) lower cost metallized ceramic substrates combine silver thick film processing with ENIG (electroless nickel and immersion gold plating). They are 30% lower in price than commonly used Pd-Pt-Ag substrates.

In addition, AgENIG® substrates offer a number of significant performances advantages. First, solder leaching, typical of conventional thick film substrates, is greatly reduced, This is especially important when using lead free soldering required for RoHS compliance processed at temperatures of 260ºC or higher. Plated substrates assure more reliable solder connections and can withstand multiple SMT reflow solder cycles and repairs. The tracks’ resistivity is improved tenfold to 1m/square, and the substrates can be used up to 170ºC continuous operation temperature. Pattern definition can be held to .006” line and spaces.

A combination of various thick film metals and selective gold plating techniques results in achieving various types of surface finish suitable for different assembly types. Therefore, the same metallized ceramic substrate yields 2u inch gold finish for SMT soldering and welding, 30u inch for gold wire bonding and 100u inch of gold for brazing and eutectic die attach.

Major features of Remtec’s Plated Copper on Thick Film (PCTF®) technology – multilayers, integrated resistors, plugged
via holes and plated thru holes – are also available with the new AgENIG products. Remtec, a RoHS compliant and ISO 9001: 2000 registered company, supplies new, economic AgENIG substrates for miniature dc/dc converters, RF resonators and filters, TEC substrates and other applications.

Please send electronic files in DXF and/or DWG formats to sales@remtec.com. A complete set of design guidelines is
available at www.remtec.com.