Rogers Corp. will be attending the IPC APEX EXPO® Conference & Exhibition scheduled for February 28 through March 1, 2012, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Calif. The IPC APEX EXPO is an industry event for electronics manufacturing and assembly, with a full technical conference and almost 400 exhibition booths expected. Rogers will be exhibiting a wide array of its high-performance circuit materials and presenting two technical presentations.
Representatives from Rogers Advanced Circuit Materials Division will be available at Booth #2101 to help visitors explore the many uses for the company's wide range of printed-circuit-board (PCB) materials, including halogen-free Theta® circuit materials. Ideal for high-speed digital circuits, Theta materials feature a dielectric constant of 3.90 at 1 GHz and low dissipation factor of 0.009 at 1 GHz for excellent low-loss performance. These materials deliver the electrical and mechanical capabilities needed for the most demanding digital circuit designs, particularly where signal integrity (SI) is critical. Theta materials also exhibit low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of only 50 ppm/°C in the z direction, or about 30 percent less expansion than standard FR-4 circuit materials for the same temperature range. This translates into improved reliability of plated through holes (PTHs), buried, blind and stacked vias in multilayer structures requiring multiple lamination cycles.
Rogers’ representatives will also highlight RO4350B™ and RT/duroid® 6035HTC high-frequency circuit materials. RO4350B hydrocarbon ceramic laminates are suitable for a wide range of low-cost, high-frequency applications, including broadband wireless circuits. They exhibit a dielectric constant of 3.48 in the z direction at 10 GHz, with a low-loss dissipation factor of 0.0037. RO4350B™ laminate, with outstanding thermal conductivity of 0.69 W/m/K, excellent z-axis CTE, and controlled thermal coefficient of dielectric constant (typically +50 ppm/°C), is well suited for many applications where thermal-management requirements are a concern, such as power amplifiers.
RT/duroid 6035HTC is a ceramic-filled, PTFE composite material designed especially for high-frequency, high-power applications, such as antenna beam-forming networks and power amplifiers for wireless cellular communications networks. With a relative dielectric constant of 3.50 at 10 GHz, low loss by merit of its dissipation factor of 0.0013 at 10 GHz, the high-thermal-conductivity (HTC) fluoropolymer composite contains a unique filler system, enabling a thermal conductivity of 1.44 W/m/K, while maintaining low drill wear versus other competitive offerings.
Visitors to the Rogers booth at IPC APEX EXPO can also learn about the company’s plans for the North American quick-turn launch of MCL-FX-2 laminates. These high-performance circuit materials are manufactured with prepregs supplied from Hitachi Chemical Co. Ltd., as a result of the two companies’ strategic collaborative agreement signed late last year. These materials are ideal for high-speed digital applications operating at speeds greater than 1 Gb/s, such as high-reliability 10-gigabit Ethernet (10GbE).
On the conference side, Rogers’ Market Development Engineer John Coonrod is scheduled to present two technical papers at IPC APEX EXPO: “Thermal Characteristics of PCB Laminates Used in High Frequency Applications,” from 9 to 10 AM on March 1, and “New Developments in PCB Laminates,” from 10:15-11:45 AM, also on March 1.