Low Cost Microwave/Millimeter-Wave Drop-In Ferrite Components

The recent advent in Personal Communications Networks, PCN, and Cellular communications has demanded low cost ferrite components for the RF front ends operating at 9GHz cellular and 1.8GHz GSM bands. The thrust of Personal communication is now being directed towards otherISM (instrumentation, scientific and Medical) bands which allow unlincensed operation at frequencies of 2.4GHZ, 5.8GHz, and 39 GHZ. Additionally licensed cellular systems are being developed at 28GHz. The theme, and reality, for the success of such system is low cost components which are amenable to production methods for mass manufacture. The 28 GHz and 39 GHz cellular systems will operate in large cities where reflections from large buildings and strucutres will enable long distance inter-city communications using very small antennas. Ferrite components, such as circulators and latching circulators are used in the front-ends of two way communication systems. The requirement of low cost and high performance demand ferrite components in formats that utilize minimum parts, surface or drop in mounting, small size and minimum interference withinterface with other transmission medium. Princeton Microwave Technology, a microwave component manufacturer, and Xtalonix, a microwave ferrite material manufacturer, are proposing to address the low cost manufacture of ferrite components by using novel injection mouldingmethods. The original ferrite components, developed by ETDL, will be prototyped in Phase I using isostatic and hot pressing methods and the ferrite material optimised for high performance. The Phase II plan will then advance the manufacture of the low cost components using state of art injection moulding methods and will directly address the forthcoming communication markets that are fast emerging.