everything RF recently interviewed Alex Moalemi and Euan Armstrong who are the Co-Founders of Quantic Eulex. Quantic Eulex designs and develops innovative ceramic components for applications in microwave, millimeter-wave, and 5G. Quantic Eulex solutions have an advantage in terms of small footprint, low profile packaging, a wide voltage range, and are fully tested up to 50 GHz, with a roadmap that extends to 100 GHz in the near future.
Q. Can you give us a history of Quantic Eulex?
Eulex: Eulex Components was formed in 2019 by Alex Moalemi and Euan Armstrong with over 30 years of experience in the ceramic multi-layer and single layer capacitor (MLCC / SLC) industry working in all aspects of MLCC fabrication from slurry formulation & tape casting through to testing and packaging.
Our primary objective in forming Eulex was to work on a single layer chip (SLC) replacement technology, and we achieved that in 2021 when our US Patent was granted. In our search for a manufacturing facility, we were introduced to Quantic Electronics. Consequently, Quantic Eulex was formed in 2022. Our manufacturing is now housed at the Quantic UTC facility in Monterey Park, California.
Q. Eulex Components Inc. was acquired by Quantic Electronics. What has been the impact of this acquisition? Can you tell us about the synergies?
Eulex: Being part of the Quantic family has been extremely beneficial to Eulex. We now have a facility to engineer, manufacture and test our patented products. We are now supported by marketing, IT, and operational resources. We also have more technical resources at our disposal such as access to high frequency testing / characterization of our products.
Quantic’s mission is to bring together the best electronics component companies under one roof—trusted technology leaders in RF & Microwave, capacitors and resistors, magnetics and sensing devices, and it is exciting to be a part of this mission. Our products fit well in the Quantic portfolio and there is significant potential for vertical integration of Eulex products within that portfolio.
Q. Who are your customers and what market segments do you cater to?
Eulex: Eulex customers range from commercial consumer product manufacturers to high reliability aerospace and defense. Our products have a vast array of applications including 5G and next generation telecom, test and measurement, AI and machine learning, new high-speed architecture, automotive, mm-wave / vision sensing / C-V2X, military & aerospace radar / sat-coms.
Q. Quantic Eulex makes a wide variety of capacitors. Can you tell us more about the different types of capacitors that you develop?
Eulex: Quantic Eulex offers ceramic capacitors for demanding high frequency optical communication applications, from our patented gap capacitor and binary capacitor designed to replace single layer capacitors, to our wire-bondable vertical layer capacitors in the smallest available case sizes, to our ceramic substrates in high purity alumina and high thermal conductivity aluminum nitride.
Q. What are millimeter wave gap capacitors? What are their applications?
Eulex: The Eulex gap capacitor was designed as a replacement for single layer wire-bondable ceramic capacitors. The move from wire-bond to surface mount design eliminates the variance and induction of the bond wire and simplifies manufacturing. Our gap capacitor design achieves this while still maintaining the frequency performance of the true single layer capacitor.
Outline of Eulex Microwave/milimeter wave Gap Capacitor
There is no other product like ours on the market today. Our patent gives us significant advantages over our competitors' products. Our unique internal structure allows us to gain up to 20X the capacitance of our competition for the same dielectric, case size, and voltage. This capacitance leverage is further extended at lower voltages not available in our competitors’ configuration. The major advantages for our customers include:
- Fewer dielectrics needed - replace 30+ dielectrics with 3 to 5.
- More capacitance from higher-Q, low-k dielectrics that operate well over 100GHz.
- Replace X7R dielectrics with temperature and voltage stable NP0 dielectrics.
- Replace exotic GBBL dielectrics with more robust legacy dielectrics.
- RoHS Compliant
In addition, the Eulex gap capacitor is high reliability capable, and consequently, it is gaining significant interest from the aerospace and defense industry. Our gap capacitor allows for MLCC / LTCC type manufacturing resulting in a lower cost than single layer capacitors. We also offer custom shapes and sizes to fit customer boards that may lead to further capacitance gains.
Q. What are Vertical Layer capacitors? Can you tell us more about this range? Where are these used?
Eulex: Vertical layer capacitors are multi-layer ceramic capacitors oriented with terminations top and bottom. The bottom of the vertical layer chips are typically soldered or die attached to a circuit and the top connection made by wire-bond. They are typically used for RF bypass, DC blocking over a wide frequency range in GaN & GaAs circuits.
Eulex Vertical Layer Capacitor
Quantic Eulex offers the smallest case size Vertical Layer ceramic capacitor currently available. Flat topography and gold termination material is suitable for solder, die-attach, and wire-bonding. With high self-resonance frequencies, capacitance values up to 100nF, and voltages to 100 V with a roadmap for High Temperature to 300°C in the near future.
Q. Can you tell us about Eulex’ other capacitors?
Eulex: Yes, in addition to the gap capacitor and vertical layer capacitors, we offer Ultra-High Q ceramic and Single Layer Binary ceramic capacitors.
Ultra High-Q Ceramic Capacitor:
Quantic Eulex offers Ultra-High Q capacitors in form factors from 01005 to 1111, and up to 1500 Volt. Capacitance values up to 1000pF are available in tight tolerances. The high Q dielectrics are temperature and voltage stable NP0. A X8G dielectric is also available with ±30ppm/°C rating to 150°C.
Ultra-High Q Capacitor
Single Layer Binary Ceramic Capacitor:
Eulex has developed and patented a ceramic capacitor with similar form-factor as a traditional single layer capacitor but with a 10-fold increase in capacitance. The patented structure allows for a reduced thickness between electrodes of the device meaning increased capacitance values for a given dielectric and component size. A wide range of capacitance values can be obtained using only three dielectrics with additional capacitance on the same device, simplifying the selection process for customers.
For wire bonding or epoxy die attach to the high purity gold connector pads. The device can be attached to the customers circuit a number of ways, either utilizing the bottom conductive and both top pads for maximum capacitance. Or any combinations of pads depending upon application.
Single Layer BInary Ceramic Capacitor - Typical Circuit AttachmentQ. What is the roadmap for Quantic Eulex?
Eulex: Eulex has several goals for the next year. We intend to increase our presence and sales on distribution outlets for our existing scaled products such as Ultra-high Q, vertical layer capacitors and substrates. To that end, we are in the process of launching Eulex on Digikey, and are in discussions with several other distributors.
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