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A Study of RF/Microwave Components Using Fused Deposition Modeling and Micro-Dispensing

The design and study of multiple RF direct digital manufactured (DDM) devices are presented in this work. A 2.45 GHz, 180°; hybrid coupler is designed to provide the space required for other system components. The coupler is designed and manufactured on a 32 mil Rogers 4003C substrate and adapted to a 100% in-fill acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) substrate. A size reduction of 66% is accomplished with a bandwidth of 16%. A DDM Ku band connector is modeled and fabricated using varying relative dielectric constants of 50% and 100% in-fill ABS. The connector maintains less than 0.45 dB of insertion loss up to 14 GHz and greater than 10dB of return loss up to 15 GHz. A lumped component model is also developed to model the damaged transition of the connector with agreement to numerical electromagnetic simulation software. Lastly, a thermal and RF study of a Ku band power amplifier (PA) is performed. Two 5 mil 100% in-fill ABS PA test fixtures are fabricated with a varying number of vias. The designs are biased at various operating points to collect thermal and RF data. The PA operates at 151°C before melting the ABS substrate. A thermal model is developed from the measurement data to predict the temperatures at given power levels with good agreement between simulation and model data.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-8152
Date23 June 2017
CreatorsStephenson, Joshua A.
PublisherScholar Commons
Source SetsUniversity of South Flordia
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceGraduate Theses and Dissertations

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