Taking printed circuit boards to a whole new level with 2.5D®
Electronic devices are expected to deliver more performance in less space than ever before. This creates growing demand for smarter, smaller and more energy-efficient electronics, while also increasing the pressure on PCB design and electronic packaging.
AT&S 2.5D® technology addresses this challenge by enabling precise cavities within the layers of a printed circuit board. Components can be embedded into the PCB instead of being mounted only on the surface, creating thinner, more compact, and more efficient designs.
With 2.5D® technology, AT&S helps customers develop high-performance electronic systems for demanding applications, from AI hardware and high-performance computing to smartphones, automotive sensors, and optical transceivers.
With 2.5D® cavity PCBs, AT&S has the option of removing precise parts of a printed circuit board in order to place components lower down. This makes it possible to manufacture extremely thin PCBs. Removing parts of the middle layers makes the circuit board flexible.
Benefits of 2.5D® technology
Benefits of 2.5D® technology
Enhanced performance and thermal management
2.5D® technology supports more effective heat distribution compared to 3D stacking. By reducing hotspots, it can improve overall reliability and help maintain stable performance in compact, high-performance electronic systems.
High bandwidth and low latency
Shorter interconnects between dies enable faster data transfer and lower latency. This makes 2.5D® technology especially valuable for high-performance computing, AI applications, and other systems that depend on rapid and reliable data movement.
Improved integration
2.5D® technology enables the heterogeneous integration of multiple dies on a single interposer. Logic, memory, and analog components can be combined in one package, supporting compact designs with higher functional density.
Greater design flexibility
By removing selected inner layers, 2.5D® technology can make PCBs semi-flexible and support the combination of different technologies within one design. This gives engineers more freedom when developing compact systems for demanding mechanical environments.
How does 2.5D® work?
2.5D® technology places components withing cavities of the PCB layer, rather than embedding or laminating.
AT&S creates these structures by removing specific regions of PCB layers through high-precision laser structuring. This enables thinner, more compact, and more efficient designs while improving the use of available space within the board.
2.5D® cavity printed circuit boards allow engineers to create precise recesses, known as cavities within the layers of a PCB.
The result is a PCB architecture that supports:
- Miniaturization and flexibility with thinner and semi-flexible PCBs
- Optimized component placement
- Improved thermal and electromagnetic performance
- Effective Electromagnetic Interference, or EMI, management
2.5D® cavity and semi-flexible printed circuit boards can be produced using standard materials such as FR4. This means that relatively few additional process steps are required in manufacturing. PCBs for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and LiDAR sensor systems in self-driving vehicles can be designed to fold or bend during installation. This helps keep the required installation space to a minimum and this is key in the automotive industry.
The 2.5D® cavity technology makes the most of the space available for a circuit.
AT&S is continuously advancing its 2.5D® technology to further enhance PCB performance. One example is the paper “Air-filled Cavity Backed 28GHz Antenna Array Implemented by 2.5D PCB Process and Network Analysis”, which demonstrates how air-filled cavities in a multilayer PCB can enable high-efficiency mmWave antennas. The demonstrated antenna efficiency of 93.5 percent highlights the potential of 2.5D® technology for next-generation high-performance systems in the automotive, consumer, and communications industries.
2.5D® real world applications
Cavity PCBs
Cavity PCBs use precisely structured recesses within the layers of a printed circuit board. These cavities allow components to be embedded into the PCB instead of being mounted only on the surface.
This approach helps reduce assembly height, optimize component placement, and create more compact designs. By using high-precision laser structuring, AT&S enables cavity PCB architectures that support miniaturization, improved thermal behavior, and reliable high-performance integration.
Semi-flexible PCBs
Semi-flexible PCBs support electronic designs that need both stable board areas and controlled bending zones. This can help fit electronics into compact or complex product designs.
For applications where space is limited, semi-flexible PCBs offer additional design freedom and can help reduce the need for extra connectors or separate connection elements.
Want to find out more about consumer electronics solutions from AT&S?
New technologies are always needed to meet the growing demands of the systems required by the ever-improving performance of consumer electronics products and the miniaturisation of electronic devices. Innovative products from AT&S inspire developers to bring out ever smaller and more powerful devices and meet the requirements of the advanced applications of the future.
Best price
2.5D® cavity printed circuit boards can be produced using standard materials, so relatively few process steps are involved in their manufacture. What’s more, fitting components within the cavities often proves more efficient than placing them on the surface or completely embedded within the PCB. For instance, PCBs for driver assistance and camera systems in self-driving cars can be designed to fold or bend during installation, thus keeping the space they require to a minimum. SSD memory devices of the kind used in computer hard drives or USB sticks have a semi-flexible design, which allows them to have a larger surface area with a comparable volume, and thus store more data. 2.5D® technology also allows cavities and semi-flexible areas to be combined within a single PCB.
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