Advanced laminate material delivers zero-skew performance for next-generation high-speed connectivity and signal integrity.
Advanced Chip & Circuit Materials, Inc. (ACCM) has unveiled a significant advancement in high-speed interconnect materials with the introduction of Celeritas™ SF1600, a next-generation laminate and prepreg solution engineered to fundamentally eliminate fiber weave skew. This development comes at a critical time for the electronics industry, as data rates surge toward 224 Gbps PAM4 and beyond, placing unprecedented demands on signal integrity, material consistency, and manufacturability.
At its core, fiber weave skew has long been misunderstood as a routing or layout challenge. Conventional mitigation strategies—such as panel rotation, serpentine routing, and zig-zag compensation—have been widely adopted in high-speed PCB design. However, these techniques only address the symptoms rather than the root cause. The real issue lies within the material itself. Traditional woven glass reinforcement introduces a spatially periodic dielectric structure, where alternating resin-rich and glass-rich regions create uneven propagation paths for differential signals. As a result, each conductor in a differential pair experiences different dielectric environments, leading to timing mismatches, or skew, that become increasingly problematic at ultra-high data rates.
Celeritas SF1600 directly addresses this materials-level limitation through ACCM’s proprietary resin and reinforcement technologies. By eliminating the inherent structural inconsistencies associated with woven glass, the material removes the root cause of skew altogether. The result is a validated zero-skew performance profile, enabling reliable signal transmission even at the most demanding speeds. Importantly, this breakthrough is achieved without requiring any deviation from standard FR-4 processing infrastructure, allowing manufacturers to adopt the material without additional investment in specialized handling, storage, or fabrication processes.
In parallel with skew challenges, the industry has increasingly explored quartz-based laminate systems to meet stringent dielectric loss requirements for next-generation applications. While quartz materials offer certain advantages in dielectric performance, they introduce a new set of complications that can undermine overall system reliability and manufacturability. These materials typically rely on heavily filler-loaded resin chemistries to achieve target coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) and dissipation factors (Df). However, this approach creates a mismatch with quartz fibers, which have a high softening point of approximately 1,665°C.
This mismatch becomes particularly problematic during laser drilling processes. Standard CO2 laser systems struggle to cleanly ablate quartz-reinforced structures, often leaving behind fiber stubs along microvia walls. These residual artifacts can compromise copper plating quality and reduce via reliability, posing a significant risk in high-density interconnect (HDI) designs. Furthermore, filler-heavy resin systems tend to exhibit poor adhesion to copper foils. For example, Tier 9 quartz-based materials typically achieve peel strengths of around 2 pli on HVLP4 copper and are generally incompatible with higher-performance HVLP5 foils. This limitation restricts designers from leveraging the full conductor-loss advantages required for 224 Gbps and emerging 448 Gbps systems.
Celeritas SF1600 overcomes these limitations by delivering robust adhesion characteristics, exceeding 5 pli peel strength on HVLP4 copper and maintaining compatibility with HVLP5. This not only improves mechanical reliability but also enables designers to fully exploit low-profile copper technologies for optimal signal performance. Additionally, the material drills cleanly using both CO2 and UV laser systems, eliminating fiber stub residue and ensuring consistent microvia formation. Mechanical drilling is equally reliable, with no evidence of fiber pull-out or accelerated tool wear.
From an electrical performance perspective, Celeritas SF1600 sets a new benchmark in its class. It features a dielectric constant (Dk) of 2.80 and an exceptionally low dissipation factor (Df) of 0.0007, both of which remain stable across frequencies up to 110 GHz as well as under varying temperature and moisture conditions. Measured insertion loss is approximately 1.05 dB per inch at 56 GHz on 7-mil differential pairs using HVLP4 copper, with projections indicating further improvement to around 0.95 dB per inch when paired with HVLP5 copper. These metrics position the material as a leading candidate for next-generation high-speed digital and RF applications.
Thermal and reliability characteristics further reinforce the suitability of Celeritas SF1600 for advanced electronics. The material exhibits a glass transition temperature (Tg) of approximately 215°C and a thermal decomposition temperature exceeding 400°C. It successfully passes 50 cycles of 260°C reflow simulation, demonstrating resilience under harsh assembly conditions. In terms of interconnect reliability, the material supports excellent stacked microvia performance, validated through 500-cycle OM testing. It is available in thicknesses ranging from 25 to 150 micrometers, providing flexibility for a wide range of design requirements.
One of the most compelling aspects of Celeritas SF1600 is its ability to eliminate hidden failure mechanisms that often go undetected during laboratory qualification. Bit error rate (BER) failures in high-speed systems frequently leave no visible physical evidence—no cracks, no delamination, and no obvious defects during inspection. Instead, the impact manifests at the system level, where links fail to initialize or operate below expected bandwidth. These issues can delay product deployment, increase debugging costs, and create substantial financial risk. Because the root cause is not immediately apparent, engineering teams may spend significant time and resources investigating symptoms rather than addressing the underlying material limitations.
By contrast, ACCM’s Celeritas materials portfolio, including SF1600, is built on extensive validation under production-representative conditions. This ensures that performance observed during testing accurately reflects real-world deployment scenarios. For design teams working at 224 Gbps and beyond, this level of predictability and reliability is critical. The elimination of fiber weave skew, combined with low dielectric loss, strong copper adhesion, and manufacturing compatibility, creates a compelling engineering case for adoption.
In conclusion, Celeritas SF1600 represents a paradigm shift in high-speed PCB materials. Rather than relying on incremental improvements or workaround techniques, it addresses one of the most persistent challenges in signal integrity at its source. As the industry continues to push toward higher data rates and more complex architectures, materials like SF1600 will play a central role in enabling the next generation of high-performance electronic systems.
