AT&S is driving innovation in printed circuit board technology
Article Type: Industry news From: Circuit World, Volume 36, Issue 4
With smartphones, AT&S has another opportunity to demonstrate its prowess as a technology pioneer, with solutions needing to be found to engineering and styling challenges: the device must be reliable, must be able to connect with all existing mobile networks, must include GPS, digital camera, touchscreen, and internet services. These requirements massively impact circuit board design and construction. “AT&S’s investment in printed circuit board innovations heavily focuses on customer-specific requirements,” explains Andreas Gerstenmayer. “We provide our customers with advice and practical support in order to find the best possible solutions for their products.”
As an example: to cover the full range of frequencies used by the mobile networks, between eight and 14 layers are needed, but the whole printed circuit board (PCB) can only be between 0.6 and 1.2 mm thick. This restricts the thickness of the insulating layers separating the conductive copper layers to a mere 30-50 μm – special materials are called for, which must be both strong and flexible. Despite the extreme thinnesses, the PCBs must be robust enough neither to break nor to warp. For the purposes of comparison, the thickness of a normal sheet of 80 g paper is 100 μm.
The electrical connections between the increasingly tiny components (e.g. capacitors, surface mount resistors 254×127μm in size) are supplied by the tracks in the copper layers and the mechanically or laser-drilled holes, which are also filled with copper. In order to be able to connect the layers in multilayer circuits boards selectively, nowadays laser-drilled holes (microvias) are used almost exclusively. Depending on the specifications, between 10,000 and 15,000 vias per circuit board are required,compared with the 500-1,000 needed for the first mobile telephones. The number of holes continues to rise as the number of applications for mobile devices increases and ever smaller and more complex components need to be included.
And in order to keep up with the latest trends, PCBs today even match the colour of the cases – smartphones are not just mobile telephones, but fashion accessories in every sense of the expression.
AT&S wins award for EU-backed HERMES© research project
The HERMES© research project, which was initiated by AT&S and is supported by the EU, is investigating the next technical innovation in PCBs: a new packaging solution for semiconductors that takes connectivity far beyond what is presently possible. Industrial implementation of this technology opens up a wide range of potential applications in medicine (e.g. a new generation of hearing aids) and in functional modules such as GPS.
The future of mobile devices (handsets, digital cameras, etc.) lies in stepping up their performance and in integrating new functions, and it is these performance enhancements that HERMES© will make possible. At IPC APEX EXPOTM, the world’s most important technical conference and trade fair for the PCB and electronic components industry, in Las Vegas, the technological contribution of the HERMES© project was recognised with the “Best International Conference Paper” Award. The research paper “Industrial PCB Development Using Embedded Passive & Active Discrete Chips Focused on Process and DfR” is the result of close collaboration between Thales Corporate Services and AT&S as part of the EU-funded HERMES© Project.
©Copyright 2010. IPC – Association Connecting Electronics Industries®, Bannockburn, IL, USA.
