High power attenuator and termination having a plurality of cascaded tee sections
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorRoger C. DeBloois
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An attenuator and termination having a relatively flat frequency response r attenuating and dissipating electrical energy is comprised of a plurality of cascaded tee attenuator sections formed on a substantially flat surface ceramic substrate comprised of alumina, for example. The attenuator sections are configured from a single thin film series resistor comprised of gold and a plurality of shunt resistors formed from a layer of cermet which underlies the gold film resistor. The cermet shunt resistors extend away from the series resistor to the side edge of the substrate where they terminate in a ground contact configuration which wraps around the side and lower surface of the substrate.
Claims11
A microstrip power attenuator having a relatively flat frequency response adapted to be coupled to a load impedance, comprising, in combination:
- a ceramic substrate having top, bottom and adjoining side surfaces;
- a layer of cermet formed on said top, bottom and side surfaces, said layer on said top surface being configured to provide a predetermined length of cermet of selected width extending across said top surface in a substantially linear configuration and having a plurality of spaced lengths of cermet projecting outwardly from said linear configuration towards said side surface and terminating in said cermet layer extending therefrom around said side surface to and over a predetermined portion of said bottom surface;
- a layer of metallization formed over said layer of cermet and being configured to at least overlay said linear configuration of cermet;
- a metallized ground plane formed on said top surface to contact said spaced lengths of cermet and extending around said side surface to and over a predetermined portion of said bottom surface;
- said layer of metallization and said spaced lengths of cermet thereby defining a plurality of cascaded tee sections;
- first metallization contact means formed on said top surface extending to one end of said layer of metallization for coupling electrical power thereto;
- and
- second metallization contact means formed on said top surface extending to the opposite end of said layer of metallization for coupling to said load impedance.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.