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Content archived on 2024-04-30

Mixed component integration in advanced printed wiring boards

Objective



The technical requirements for advanced "Information technology" and "Telecommunications" products, necessitate significant improvement in electronic interconnection and packaging. The challenge that printed board manufactures face is the continuing requirement for end product size reduction and faster signal speeds, hand in hand with constant drive for higher performance and reliability. This, to a certain extent, has been realised through reduction of circuit geometries. Further reduction will still be realised in the next few years, which will enable increases of component packaging density on the board. Direct chip attach or chip on board will be part of this evolution. Further improvement in interconnection and packaging density is, from a components assembly point of view, still limited to the assembly of components on 'only' the outer surfaces of the printed boards. The ability to embed these components on innerlayers of the multilayer printed boards will make available an additional dimension in reaching the ever increasing density and higher speed requirement. For this reason hybrid circuits, having comparable features at its disposal, are not considered to be a substitute interconnect solution.. Hybrids are add on components. The objective of the project is to develop new materials and manufacturing processes to embed passive components within the printed wiring structures, which are fabricated from laminate materials. In a first instance the project will concentrate on resistors, capacitors and inductors. These, currently discrete components, are to be situated in the immediate periphery of the active circuits on the board for biasing and/or terminating reasons.

As a consequence, this is limiting the increase of interconnect density and it causes lower system performance. The technology will be applicable for a wide range of printed wiring board styles, including multi chip modules.

Advantages of mixed component integration:
- By elimination of discrete components, additional space is created which can offer increased functionality by adding more integrated circuitry or it can result in smaller board size / thinner end product;
Increase meantime between failures, reliability in general, due to the reduction of the number of solder joint connects;
Increase of "first pass yield" at assembly site and of course decrease assembly cycle time per board;
- Improved electrical performance for high speed logic circuitry. With the ability to "bury" components on innerlayers, reflections can be reduced, shorter delay times provided and impedance matching can be improved due to the proximity of the terminating resistors to the end of the drive lines;
- The associated reduction in the component assembly process will include reduction of consumable materials such as fluxes, tin lead solder and cleaning.

Benefits will be found in energy saving, product recycling and environmental control issues. The project will enable the manufacturing of high specification, low cost type of modules or board assemblies, particularly suited to the market domain of portable and handheld communication and information technology products.

Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinator

Kam Circuits Ltd
EU contribution
No data
Address
Station Road
SN11 0JT Melksham
United Kingdom

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Total cost

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Participants (6)

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