Patent ID: 7156938

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a workpiece, comprising the following steps: placing respective layers of metal on the surfaces of both sides of a plate of ceramic material, the surfaces being generally mutually parallel; cutting the metallized ceramic plate along parallel planes perpendicular to the metal layers to form a multiplicity of bars with respective sections of the cut metal layers disposed on opposite sides of each bar; stacking the bars with metal layer facing metal layer, each pair of contacting metal layers forming a respective electrode; bonding the stacked bars to form a stack with metal edges of the electrodes exposed on the periphery of the stack; placing a first layer of dielectric material on a first face of the stack; and placing a second layer of dielectric material on a second face of the stack; wherein each of the first and second dielectric layers comprises a respective substrate that supports a respective pattern of metal applied before placement of the dielectric layers on the respective faces of the stack, metal-filled or metalcoated vias being formed in the first dielectric layer for electrically connecting the metal patterns on the first dielectric layer to respective odd-numbered electrodes and in the second dielectric layer for electrically connecting the metal patterns on the second dielectric layer to respective even-numbered electrodes.