Photo Etched Copper RF Shield Cans Antenna Array Elements for 5G Telecom Equipment

This copper RF shield and antenna element line is produced on eight automated photochemical machining lines in Shenzhen and Dongguan, using cupric chloride spray etching instead of mechanical stamping. Copper alloy sheet is laminated with dry film photoresist, exposed through digitally generated artwork, developed and etched to the final outline, then stripped, annealed and selectively plated. Because the pattern lives in a digital file rather than in a hardened steel die, every production lot repeats the same RF geometry to within ±0.005 mm, which keeps impedance, insertion loss and passive intermodulation performance stable from the first prototype to volume shipment.

The process suits thin gauges that stamping cannot hold flat. Foil from 0.03 mm to 0.5 mm is etched without roll marks, die roll burrs or work hardening, so antenna radiators, shield covers, gaskets and cavity filter spacers keep their flatness after etching and can be fed directly into SMT pick-and-place equipment. Half-etch control allows a single sheet to carry two thickness zones, for example a rigid mounting flange combined with a flexible spring finger or a step profile that seats into a housing without an extra assembly step.

• Tooling-Free RF Pattern Repeatability: Artwork changes are made in CAD, so a new antenna array or shield outline is etched in days without die cost, and every re-order reproduces the original pattern without drift.
• Half-Etch Step Profiles: Etch depth can be held at 50%, 70% or any intermediate value to create spring contacts, step gaskets and recessed solder pads on one continuous sheet.
• Burr-Free, Stress-Free Edges: Chemical removal avoids the sheared edge and micro-crack typical of stamping, giving clean plated sidewalls that help hold low passive intermodulation values in RF paths.
• Broad Copper Alloy Range: C1100 oxygen-free copper, C2680 brass, H62/H65 brass and beryllium copper are all processed in house, with material certificates traceable to each lot.
• Selective Plating Options: Nickel, tin, silver, hard gold and ENIG finishes are applied after etching, and plating can be masked to leave specific contact areas bare copper or bare brass.
• Flatness and Camber Control: Tensioned carrier frames and post-etch stress relief hold camber under 0.5 mm per metre on thin foil, so parts sit flat in automated assembly fixtures.

The parts are used in 5G massive MIMO antenna arrays, remote radio unit shield covers, cavity filter spacers, waveguide gaskets, radar front-end modules, IoT gateway shielding and test fixture contacts. Telecom designers choose etched copper because a radiating element or a shield fence can be revised after simulation without waiting for hard tooling, and because the etched edge does not distort current distribution the way a stamped burr does. The same process supports low-volume engineering builds of a few hundred pieces and repeat orders in the hundreds of thousands, with the same inspection plan applied to both.

Every shipment is packed in anti-static bags with desiccant, separated by interleaving paper, and boxed in export-grade corrugated cartons with foam corner protection. In-process checks cover artwork verification, etch depth, trace width and plating thickness; outgoing inspection includes 100% visual review under magnification plus sampling on a vision measuring system and CMM. The factory operates to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and IATF 16949, with PPAP documentation available for automotive and telecom programmes.

Send us your Gerber, DXF or STEP file together with the required alloy, thickness and plating, and our engineering team will return a manufacturability review and quotation, usually within one working day.