What about HDI?
Anyhow, chip packaging is still fairly chunky, more area is required to get out more heat if we remain with convection, and
perhaps more importantly there is not the same investment going into PCB fabrication and assembly as there is into silicon (and
I guess that the PCB side of things still runs at a considerably lower return on investment);
That 100W supply would also need to be pretty efficient unless it's sitting in something other than air.
As long as conventional PCB technology is required for basic functions like power, and as long as it can be made to deliver most
short range interconnect at a cost less than any competitive technology, I can't see it disappearing for a good few years.
Unless of course we run out of energy! Good old planar copper can still be crafted into connecting even the fastest CMOS and 3-5
chips, at least for over 99% of cases.
Just pity the poor sod that forgot to patent the PCB!
Best Regards
David Greig
______________________________
GigaDyne Ltd
Buchan House
Carnegie Campus
Dunfermline KY11 8PL
United Kingdom
t: +44 (0)1383 624 975
www.gigadyne.co.uk
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-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ingemar Hernefjord
Sent: 01 December 2005 20:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Moore's law and PWBs
How will the boards be in the future?
The chips have gone through a tremendous evolution. Intel's processor clocks nearly 4 Gbit/s now, but Sony/Toshiba's playstation
processor can make 200 billion 'calculations' per sekund. That's not the end. The UK company Clear Speed (I think they call
themselves that) are experimenting with chips with Several hundred processor cores. They claim that in one or two years from
now, their processor will be capable of about 1,000 Gbit/s! But what about chip capacitors and copper lines and vias and all
other components on a board? Ceramic capacitors have indeed become smaller and with a lot more pF in them. A 100 nF cap today is
several times less in size than it was some 10 year back. And you can see tiny uH chips, LED chips, 6 A fuses just some square
millimeters wide. But vias and PTHs and conductors and multilayer structures have not by far undergone same revolution. And we
should not even talk about Moore's law. Question is: is there a demand for further minimizing these components? Or will the
familiar PWB as we see it today be superseded by silicon (just an exampel, there are dozens of other materials) substrates with
integration of LCR in one and the same process? Will a 100 Watt DC power supply be a 1x1 cm 'board'
and a computer board less than your playcard? Will the enormous assembly plants be just small units with 100 persons,
supercomputers, and automatic machines that produce electronics for a whole country on just a few hundred meters? What will
happen if, over a night, there is a change from copper/ epoxy/drilling/plating/soldering/boards to substrates with built-in
nanotubes, optic conductors and all other future stuff, and no need any more for the ordinary, now 50 year old PWB? Will this
happen and when?
We have been discussing this over a cup of tea or coffee (not american
coffee) but it always ends in a shrug and 'well, well, that day, that headache'. Just wondering if anyone plans for the DAY, or
if we all just put the head in the..the..waste bin.
If we plan to conquer other planets and build civilisation there, logic gives that we must have and will see quite a new
generation of 'boards'..
Ingemar Hernefjord
Ericsson Microwave Systems
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