- 04 April 2006 -

Merrimac gains China patent for microtechnology

West Caldwall, NJ, USA, based Merrimac Industries, Inc., has been granted a patent for its Multi-Mix Microtechnology from the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China entitled "Method of Making Microwave Multifunction Modules Using Fluoropolymer Composite Substrates".

Chairman and CEO Mason N. Carter commented, "This patent further supports our Multi-Mix Product/Market Strategy and enhances our intellectual property in one of the key growth areas in the global economy and facilitates our ability to secure manufacturing and licensing arrangements in China. This patent covers products such as low cost integrated power amplifiers and radio transceivers for wireless infrastructure and WiMAX base stations in the 450 MHz - 3.7 GHz range as well as microwave and millimetre wave line of sight digital radios and backhaul systems.

"There is growing trend in the wireless infrastructure industry to integrate base station power amplifiers and radio transceivers. This trend is in line with our Multi-Mix high power integrated platform strategy to replace labor intensive and expensive discrete RF subsystems such as power amplifiers, radio transceivers, tower mount antennas, with low cost, compact, and light weight integrated solutions. This patent enhances Merrimac's position as a pioneer in the global wireless infrastructure industry offering the industry's first integrated radio transceivers, power amplifiers and transmit and receive modules for base station and tower top applications. This patent enhances our competitive position to establish significant partnerships with major base station OEMs in China enabling Merrimac to participate with its advanced integrated high power amplifier technology in a growing number of base station opportunities".

Multi-Mix Microtechnology is an innovative proprietary enabling platform technology developed exclusively for integration of RF, microwave and millimetre circuits, multifunction modules and subsystems where high RF power handing capability and superior thermal management are performance critical. Multi-Mix integrated platform technology is based on a proprietary multilayer PTFE process whereby fluoropolymer composite substrates of different dielectric constant and thickness are fusion bonded together to form a highly robust multilayer structure. The fusion bonding process yields a highly reliable homogeneous multilayer stripline structure with superior electrical and thermal performance across a wide frequency and power range.

The Multi-Mix fusion bonded multilayer structure is an enabling platform for embedding a wide range of RF and microwave semiconductor chips such as LDMOS, GaAs FET/MESFET and PHEMT, GaN, SiC, and SiGe, etc., eliminating expensive discrete packages. This enabling platform offers the capability to replace complex RF power amplifier circuitry with low cost integrated modules, dramatically improving reliability and peak power handling.

Furthermore, he says, by incorporating other active as well as passive circuit elements, etched resistors, and plated-through via holes a three-dimensional subsystem enclosure can be formed that requires no further packaging resulting in significantly smaller, low cost and light weight products with enhanced reliability and superior electrical and thermal performance.

Web: http://www.merrimacind.com

Web: http://www.filtranmicro.com