Etched Thick Film Printing

In some cases, traditional thick film printing techniques down to 0.005" lines and spaces are not enough. Tighter line spacing is sometimes required due to size considerations. In other situations such as high frequency RF circuits, etched thick film substrates can be a cost saving alternative to thin film substrates. Etched thick film substrates have similar line definition to thin film substrates but the metalization is significantly thicker. A single metal layer in thick film is typically 10-12 microns. In comparision, a layer of sputtered thin film metalization is often less than 1 micron. In some RF applications this additional thickness can be an advantage over thin film substrates in electrical performance.