Thin Film Integrated Passive Devices

Resistors, inductors, and capacitors are the most common passive electronic components; they’ve long been available at different price points with different capabilities. Heightening expectations for performance in today’s advanced electronics environment mean we need equally advanced processes for creating components.

The specifications of the end product (e.g., price, size, and reliability) determine which passive components will best serve the design, so the market is dense with options. Integrated passive devices (IPD) represent a category of components designed for optimal, application-specific use rather than general use. IPDs emerged in the 1960s as a solution for reducing the total number of assembly steps in the circuit manufacturing process. To this day, leveraging IPDs is an effective approach for engineers working to meet size, weight, and power (SWaP) goals.