Experience and new trends in MMIC's for space programmes

In the past twenty years a considerable amount of work has been done on microwave circuit integration, mainly using GaAs material. MMIC's were finally introduced to the space-borne equipment in the early 90s. They are now clearly unavoidable and many systems are presently in operation with GaAs chips on board. Now, with the maturity of MMIC, everyone agrees that packaging is the key issue. Micro-packages favored the penetration of MMIC space systems. They brought modularity and testability staying hermetic that were necessary for assessing their ability to respect space constraints