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World's First Ultra-Thin Multilayer Circuit Board
neutron_p writes "Seiko Epson has developed the world's first 20-layer circuit board. Multilayer circuit boards are normally produced by using a photolithography. However, the industry has struggled to produce thin, lightweight, high-density multilayer circuit boards. Seiko Epson uses an inkjet-based manufacturing process, which has many advantages over a traditional photolithography process."
No, they were talking about nanometer size silver particles in the conductive ink. The traces should be much larger than that if you want to carry even small currents. At least you read TFA if not carefully enough :-)
The issue (especially for fine pitch stuff) is drilling and soldering. Especially if you have a double-sided (or multi-layer) board. For big components (traditional resistors, capacitors) drilling's not too bad, but when you have to drill holes for bga sockets, or even 40-pin ribbon connectors, registration and alignment is a real problem. Soldering with SMD's by hand is hellish. Some people do 'reflow' with toaster ovens (and it works!), but it's still a lot of fussing.
Right now you have two choices in the DIY market: drill it yourself with a drill press and a lot of jigs to try and line things up, or buy a CNC drill press (easily > $1000).
Of course, you can always do what I usually do for projects, which is send them to a boardhouse and have them do 'everything' (etch, drill, soldermask) but turnaround can become an issue, and the cost can become pretty high. High cost tends to make you go "rats, that might be cool, but I don't want to blow $150 to see if that board will work".
Thankfully when you need a new board, a link will come up to Epson.com to buy more.
In all seriousness, I find it interesting that this process cuts down "a large volume of photoresist, developer, etchants, stripping agents and other chemicals" needed for the process.
However, is this based on earlier processes or IBM's improvements in recent years?
In 2001 . "Michael Cummings, James Fuller, Jr., Timothy Krush, Mike Longo, Thomas Lyons, Curt Miller, Paul Speranza, William Wike, James Wilson, and Michael Wozniak of Endicott, New York, share $50,000 for developing and qualifying a new process that eliminated solvent use from the manufacture of ultra fine pitch (UFP) wire bond chip carrier products. A first in the industry, the team's innovations included the investigation and qualification of a dry film resist that achieves UFP's stringent photolithography specifications, while being compatible with existing printed wire board manufacturing steps. Benefits include, on an annual basis, avoiding 5.2 million pounds of chemical use, 5.6 million pounds of industrial and hazardous waste generation and off-site transport, and 110,000 pounds of process air emissions while saving over $5.6 million."
More info on here as well.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
As someone that has done many circuit board designs over the years, I can say that this is _not_ the first 20 layer PWB. Many backplanes for large systems are built with 20 layer or more.
What looks to be new is the fast, cheap, and hopefully environmentaly friendly way to make boards. Also, from the picture, this has to be the thinnest 20 layer board by far - a distinct advantage in light weight hand held devices. But the thin board raises some questions for board designers such as "what is the trace impedance". However, that's one of many details that we won't know the answer to until the technology is commercialized (oooo, a nounized verb!!!)
Here's my letter to PhysOrg.com:
...contains an absurdly incorrect statement in its first sentence, to wit:
Hello,
The article...
http://www.physorg.com/news1789.html
"Seiko Epson Corporation today announced that it has succeeded in leveraging its proprietary inkjet technology to develop what the company believes is the world's first 20-layer circuit board."
No. Not even close. I have personally worked on circuit boards of as many as 48 layers, as long ago as 1985. The math coprocessor for the Sperry-1100/90 (code named "Eagle") had a motherboard that was roughly 20" x 36" in size, had forty-eight layers, was about 1/2" thick, had solid silver bus bars laminated in each side, weighed about forty pounds, and was so hard that if you knocked on it with your knuckle, it would ring like a bell.
There is no possibility that the people at Epson believe they've built the world's first twenty layer board. Twenty layer boards are a little uncommon, but far from record-breaking.
Sincerely,
BrakesForElves
Founder and past President
FASTechnologies, Inc. www.fastec.com
About the word "if": If bullfrogs had wings, they wouldn't bounce around on their little green butts.
This guy always posts stories with links to physorg.com which other people have noted is a site that rips off other news sites' stories and throws in a bunch of ads for revenue. You can check out his submission history here (18 submissions accepted in the last 50 days or so):
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=neutron_p
Do we have another Roland on our hands? Why not just post a link to the original story on the original news site?
"Seiko Epson Corporation today announced that it has succeeded in leveraging its proprietary inkjet technology to develop what the company believes is the world's first 20-layer circuit board."
Has become....
"Seiko Epson Corporation today announced that it has succeeded in leveraging its proprietary inkjet technology to develop ultra-thin 20-layer circuit board."
Nice job!