Design of a high-temperature coaxial connector for millimeter wave applications

A typical coaxial connector consists of a center conductor, an outer conductor, and a support bead. As the connectors are usually soldered to a package, they must withstand the packaging temperatures ranging from 150° to 300°C. This results in degradation in the electrical and mechanical properties of existing support bead materials leading to poor connector performance. In this dissertation, a new type of connector with a special type of support bead has been designed and tested. This special type of coaxial connector can withstand higher temperatures used in packaging. The key to having a high temperature connector is to have a high temperature support bead. An appropriate dielectric material for our connector has been selected. A 1.0 mm panel mount type of connector has been designed which operates up to 110 GHz. The connectors have been fabricated and their electrical performance has been measured using vector network analyzer.