Smart Molding International 3-2021

additive manufacturing 22 smart_molding international 3/2021 Partnership to develop 3D printed dielectric material systems for radio frequency devices T he partnership allows both com - panies to leverage their areas of expertise to unlock scalable man - ufacturing of high-value RF components. Rogers Corporation’smarket dominance in low-loss, high frequency materials combined with Fortify’s advanced com - posite processing capabilities enables customers to efficiently design and print precision substrates, Luneberg-like GradientRefractiveIndexlenses,andend- use components. Fortify’s Continuous Kinetic Mixing (CKM TM ) powered DLP platform enables high-throughput pro - duction of fine-featured parts out of heavily loaded materials that are oth - erwise difficult to process. “As our world becomes increasingly connected, so does the need for faster and higher capacity wireless connec - tions,” Trevor Polidore, New Product Development Group Leader at Rogers Corporation said. “Partnering with Fortify will allow Rogers to deliver a complete solution for the manufac - turing of 3D-printed dielectric com - ponents, enabling our customers to create the next generation of wireless systems.” Wireless communications and SATCOM systems have led the expan - sion of active antenna systems (AAS) use into mainstream consumer appli - cations. By taking advantage of AAS’s ability to generate highly directive sig - nals that can be electronically steered and form various beam patterns, the latest applications such as 5G and high- throughput satellites (HTS) can deliver services previously inaccessible with conventional antennas. However, many AAS technologies are expensive and complex to manu - facture with multitudes of perfor - mance tradeoffs that often require new technologies and high cost de - vices to yield competitive solutions. It is possible to address some of these challenges with intricate 3D dielectric materials, but complex 3D dielectrics have historically been difficult or im - possible to manufacture with the nec - essary cost, quality, and repeatability to meet practical manufacturing re - quirements. “The photopolymers available today are an order of magnitude more lossy than thermoplastics, yet 3D printing complex parts at scale out of ther - moplastics is time consuming.” Phil Lambert, Sr. Applications Engineer at Fortify said. “With the right low-loss material systems from Rogers com - bined with Fortify’s printers, we can offer a solution that provides excellent Fortify, a Boston-based 3D printing startup, and Rogers Corporation, the global leader in engineered materials for advanced connectivity and power electronics, announced in May their partnership to enable additive manufacturing of low-loss dielectric materials for radio frequency (RF) devices and electronics.