Isola’s Role in the Deployment of 5G
By now just about everyone has heard about 5G in commercials or on billboards but you may be wondering what it means for printed circuit boards and the materials available from Isola?
5G stands for the 5th generation wireless standard. 5G brings brings faster mobile internet speeds to market that are up to 100 times faster than 4G. Since 5G networks run at much higher speeds, higher speed printed circuit board materials are needed for 5G applications. 5G can carry data fast, but not far so a large amount of new hardware is being deployed throughout the world to support the new networks. This new hardware includes base stations, small cells, MIMO antennas and more. This means the demand for suitable base materials is huge and growing
Materials suitable for 5G applications include some of Isola’s High Speed Digital and Radio Frequency/MicroWave products like I-Tera MT40, Tachyon 100G and Astra MT77. These materials provide improved signal loss over traditional FR-4 materials and mid loss products, consistent dielectric constants and are hybrid compatible.
The new systems require a wide array of materials to meet specific design requirements For example; a cell tower may house multiple systems from multiple providers and each of the systems may require materials of various performance levels.
The Active Antenna Units (AAU) require High Frequency materials for antennas and power amplifiers like Astra MT77 or Tachyon 100G. These materials provide the low Dk and stable electrical performance characteristics that are needed for 5G designs. Distribution Units (DU) and Centralized Units (CU) require High Speed materials with low to ultra-low loss electrical properties.
Isola materials have consistent Dielectric Constant (Dk) and Dissipation Factor (Df) from low frequencies to high frequencies making the design process predictable. These materials are designed with HVLP (VLP2) very low profile copper foil for low overall insertion loss for digital applications and low PIM for antenna applications. All of Isola 5G materials are designed for low moisture uptake and stable electrical performance across a wide range of temperatures to handle anticipated environmental conditions.
Contact your Insulectro or Isola sales representative for more information.
17 June 2021
