BOSTON – 3-D printing startup Fortify and Rogers Corp. are partnering to enable additive manufacturing of low-loss dielectric materials for radio frequency devices and electronics.

Rogers’ low-loss, high-frequency materials, combined with Fortify's advanced composite processing capabilities, enable customers to design and print precision substrates, Luneberg-like gradient refractive index lenses, and end-use components. Fortify's continuous kinetic mixing powered DLP platform enables high-throughput production of fine-featured parts out of heavily loaded materials.

"As our world becomes increasingly connected, so does the need for faster and higher capacity wireless connections," said Trevor Polidore, new product development group leader at Rogers. "Partnering with Fortify will allow Rogers to deliver a complete solution for the manufacturing of 3-D-printed dielectric components, enabling our customers to create the next generation of wireless systems."

"The photopolymers available today are an order of magnitude more lossy than thermoplastics, yet 3-D printing complex parts at scale out of thermoplastics is time-consuming," said Phil Lambert, senior applications engineer, Fortify. "With the right low-loss material systems from Rogers, combined with Fortify's printers, we can offer a solution that provides excellent feature resolution, great RF properties, and high throughput capabilities for end-use parts."

While traditional DLP platforms struggle to print highly viscous materials, CKM technology employed on all Fortify Flux series printers allows for the processing of advanced materials, such as Rogers' low-loss materials, while maintaining material quality and consistency throughout the manufacturing process.

"With Rogers, we are positioned to commercialize the first scalable, low-loss 3-D printed RF dielectric materials," Josh Martin, CEO and cofounder of Fortify said. "This partnership is a great example of how innovative materials and technology companies can come together and provide a differentiated value proposition to a rapidly growing market. Fortify has a scalable way of manufacturing continuously varying dielectric material, which is a game changer for the scanning beam antenna market (5G, surveillance, remote sensing, and security)."

Applications of this new technology include passive lens devices that augment gain and directivity for single- or multi-feed systems found in RF sensing and SATCOM on-the-move commlinks, and 5G AAS systems to widen field of view and reduce sidelobe levels.

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