Substrate-like PCBs: Concentrated expertise
Shrinking it down
The demands placed on the digital devices we use in our everyday lives are increasing year on year. A good example of this is the smartphones we carry with us all the time. In the early days of mobile telephony, we needed large devices to make calls on the move. Today, we have powerful computers in our pockets that perform a variety of tasks for us. This development was only possible because the necessary technology was miniaturized greatly. This also meant that more and more components had to be combined and integrated into a single housing.
Our SLPs are the preliminary culmination of this development. Circuits on SLPs are significantly smaller than anything that was previously possible in the PCB industry. They allow the construction of complete electronic systems with unrivaled compactness, keeping signal paths short and losses low. In order to realize the tiny structures on the printed circuit boards required for this degree of miniaturization, processes from the production of IC substrates must be adopted.
Benefits of SLP
- Enormous space-saving
- Low signal loss and reduced power consumption
- Faster data transmission
Concentrated, substrate-like printed circuit boards
If you take a modern smartphone apart, you’ll find only a single circuit board inside. It might be small, but it connects all the individual system components, like the memory, cameras, sensors and processors. Miniaturisation isn’t just about saving space; it also reduces power consumption and production costs. Mobile phones, laptops, smartwatches, electric cars and industrial robots can all profit from these advancements. In modern smartphones, they can reduce the space required for the main circuit board by around a third.
High tech from AT&S makes smartphones and other devices slimmer and enables a longer battery life
Microelectronics experience as the basis
AT&S has been one of the world’s leading substrate manufacturers for years and therefore has the necessary technology and expertise to help shape this next step in the evolution of electronic components. As a result, manufacturing processes are slowly approaching the dimensions of the nanoworld of the semiconductor industry. Today, our SLPs allow a space reduction of up to 30 percent compared to conventional PCBs. The conductor tracks on SLPs are now only 12 and 50 micrometres wide and engineers at AT&S are working on preparing for the next miniaturization push.
New technologies such as embedded trace substrates and coreless PCBs will continue to drive the development of even smaller SLPs. Embedded Trace Substrates technology embeds traces directly into the surface of IC substrates or PCBs, increasing circuit density by a factor of three and minimizing electrical losses. Coreless PCBs are printed circuit boards without the traditional core. They can be thinner and produced with an uneven number of layers.
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