Abstruct-The maturing of monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology has spawned a variety of new military and commercial applications. As a result, there is an increased emphasis on the packaging of MMIC chips and MMIC-based components. Currently, the industry is applying a number of new assembly and packaging technologies to RF components and subsystems driven by the forces of performance, size and weight, and cost. This paper outlines the current evolution in microwave and millimeter-wave packaging using examples drawn from the area of active array antennas.

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The electrical performance parameters of solderless interconnects and the associated package development will be reviewed for a 3-11 X-band transmitlreceive module. The microwave performance over 7-18 GHz, as well as the environmental performance, will be discussed with both theoretical and actual measurements.Solderless interconnects are attractive to the imicrowave designer because they provide high density interconnects, are blind mate connectors, provide easy assembly/disassembly and are low cost. In addition, the connectors can provide excelllent performance under the stress of the airborne environment. This paper will focus on the performance otf elastomeric and fuzz button solderless interconnects used to couple transmission lines that are metallized on adjacent substrates. The transmission lines on the substrates are conductor backed coplanar wave guide (CPWG), stripline, and vertical three-wire lines resembling coplanar wave guide (CPW). The solderless interconnects provided the interconnection between these transmission lines on the adjacent substrates. The interconnects also carried I)C currents up to 25 amps at 8 volts. All transmission lines were metallized on a multilayer alluminurn nitride substrate. The metallization of the inner transmission lines is tungsten, while the surface lines are tungsten overplated with nickel and gold.The performance of the elastomeric and fuzz buttoin interconnects was measured using various horizontal misregistration distances between the adjacent transmission lines. An instrument constructed from an optical bench was used to measure the misregistration associated with the insertion loss. Results of these measurements will be given at the conference. These measurements allowed the determination of the: precision of the xy registration of the transmission lines on adjacent substrates. These precision requirements were passed on to the ALN substrate manufacturer.A second task was the measurement of all the possible connection variations between the possible transmission lines and the solderless interconnects. Table 1 shows a matrix listing all of the possible combinations that were measured. In general, the fuzz buttons have less insertion 0-7803-3034-X/95/$4.00 0 1 9 9 5 IEEE 181