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World's First Ultra-Thin Multilayer Circuit Board 126

Posted by Hemos from the first-to-the-post dept.
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."
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World's First Ultra-Thin Multilayer Circuit Board

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  • Not again (Score:3, Funny)

    by captnitro ( 160231 ) * on Monday November 01, 2004 @08:40AM (#10684797)
    Seiko Epson uses an inkjet-based manufacturing process, which has many advantages over a traditional photolithography process

    Great. Now I'm going to have to run out in the middle of the night to buy overpriced Epson inkjet refills in two aisles.

    And the paperjams on a PCB? Insane.

    • Re:Not again (Score:4, Informative)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:01AM (#10684911)
      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 [ibm.com]. "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. [state.ny.us]

      • Re:Not again (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Wonderful.. they save a company $5.6 million, and all they get is $5k each.

        "Thanks for finding my Aston-Martin, here's a chocolate-chip cookie for you to share with the rest of the police department."

    • Re:Not again (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If it's anything like a normal Epson printer, half of that ultra expensive ink will be used on repeated cleanings.

  • Anyone know if it's bendable? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cshark ( 673578 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @08:43AM (#10684812)
    Man wouldn't it be cool if it was flexible? Probably wishful thinking.

    • Re:Anyone know if it's bendable? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @08:53AM (#10684870)
      It sounds like it should be somewhat flexible, although I doubt you would want to move it much because the ink might flake off or crack. It looks like it could produce curved and bent boards though. That would be great for putting electronics in odd shaped housings.

      I want the consumer version. This would make it much easier for the hobbiest like myself to make boards. Just print and use. I could see printing out the board on a thin film and then glueing it to a normal thickness material. The only problem I see is how to solder to it. It's a conductive ink so you might need a low-temperature solder or some other method so as to not burn it.
      • Connection - how about reverse it? Print PCB on board/paper with pre-installed connectors? And PCB itself is also nothing - you need to mount SMT resistors, CPUs etc.
        • I've seen ancient ('70s origin) PCBs with most of the resistors printed onto them (the exceptions being extreme values and high power components). Not easily repairable but if you could print a new one, who cares?

          At well-controlled inkjet resolutions, at least some resistors and capacitors (e.g. power rail decouplers) should be printable as well.
      • But you would have to be careful when designing oddly-shaped boards to place the surface-mount components on flat spots. I don't think they would work very well on a curve.

        And If you're struggling to fit a board into a housing, chances are that you will use surface-mount components quite heavily.

        This problem is alleviated somewhat if the PCB is flexible, because you could solder the components in place before bending the PCB into it's desired shape.
      • Have had some luck in printing then etching a board. Beats mask and or Resen pens.

        • Re:Anyone know if it's bendable? (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Me too, but this wouldn't require the etching stage. Just one step, no mess and very fast. Assuming the ink is relatively inexpensive then it would be cheaper too (which is why they created this in the first place I believe).
      • Component attachment is a trivially-solved problem - conductive epoxy. If you're worried about durability, you then pot the entire thing in a nondconductive epoxy. They even make a conductive epoxy that is not conductive until it is "pinched" between leads and board, so you can paint a whole row of SMT contacts and push a chip's leads down on them and make good connection.

  • will this make it to the consumer? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ba3r ( 720309 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @08:45AM (#10684822)

    Because I think this could be another significant price reduction for people who want to try their hand at manufacturing hardware/embedded devices in their garage.. buy a 150 dollar inkjet, some special paper and conductive/insulator ink, and print up all your designs.

    and the less barrier there is to entry in an industry, the more the competition, and the faster/better the growth.

    • They're talking about laying nanometres of ink, I think a 150 dollar inkjet isn't quite going to cut it... 1.5 million dollar inkjet more likely :)

      • Re:will this make it to the consumer? (Score:4, Informative)

        by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @08:53AM (#10684867)
        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 :-)
        • *hangs head in shame* Even so, I suspect this is going to require more than an Epson deskjet, or whatever :)
        • But what about the future. There's nothing that really would restrict one from printing out PCB's with larger pathways for projects that don't need the nanosized ones. Perhaps, like "print quality" you could choose a slightly thicker pathway etc as well

          Once the technology catches on, then it may be able to branch to other uses.

          That being said, has anyone ever tried to make a conductive fluid and inject it into a standard printer? It would have to be low viscosity or it'll clock the heads, but if one had
    • I've been waiting for geeks to do this. I figured OLEDs would cause it. The key is to find low cost inks that have the right properties and work in a refillable ink cartridge. When doing layout, on-screen colors would naturally indicate different materials on the print.

      Somebody post a how-to when you figure this out.

    • Re:will this make it to the consumer? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      For (most) PCB work, currently the printing isn't the problem. For a hundred bucks you can get a decent UV lamp, photoresist boards, and etchant chemicals. Print out your PCB layout with a laser printer, expose and go.

      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 conn

    • Heck, I don't care much for multi-layer, take a "normal" inkjet printer that can print on a solid plate (like the CD printers out there) with a corrosion-resistant ink and I would be all set for making single- or double-sided PCBs.

      I currently make do with the laserjet and clothes iron method, but it is less than perfect, it takes me a couple of tries to get a good transfer.

    • I haven't had a multi-layer PCB made in over a decade, back then it was totally outside the hobbiest price range. Anyone got some current pricing data on this?

    • Eh... I'm pretty sure some circuitboard "blanks" and a couple bottles of etching solution will still be less expensive for the electronics hobbyist.

  • Oh boy, (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kazoosandinstruments ( 717278 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @08:50AM (#10684848)
    I don't know how I'm going to keep from breaking one of these things every time I touch it. I have broken some thicker-than-ultra-thin PCBs in my day and don't imagine these to be any less susceptible to the pressure of my indelicate hands. I wonder if/hope we'll see some connectors/slots in the future that don't require a board-breaking effort to slip the peripheral cards out.
    • Isn't the significance of this technology that of developing true three-dimensional ICs ? I thought that the "next step" was 3D CPUs.

      Why are you guys talking abotu handling these things? I probably have no idea what I'm talking about but maybe someone could enlighten me.

      • Re:Oh boy, (Score:3, Informative)

        by hitmark ( 640295 )
        3d ic or cpus (basicly a ic on steroids) have one gigantic problem, heat. unless you make a whole lot of channels and blow air thu them your going for a core meltdown in the center of the chip. and those channels are wasteing space.

        now if they can get optical chips working then we may well see 3d designs as they dont have that mutch of a problem with heat buildup...
  • With this 20-layer PCB at last I can build my inversor without worring about the connections!
    Thank you Seiko Epson!

  • This is not... (Score:1, Informative)

    by confused one ( 671304 )
    the first 20 layer circuit board. I've seen more layers...
    • Exactly. How on Earth is this revolutionary?

      If I bothered to RTFA I'd probably see that the novelty is that it's a 20 layer HDI substrate.

      But that isn't reflected in the lame wording of the post.
      • cuz it's printed with inkjet technology rather than the taditional etching techniques
      • I've seen 20 layer thin film. I've seen 20 layer thick film (traditionaly silk screen). I'll grant you, what's novel is the method they used to print the board.

        However, the article says "... the company believes is the world's first 20-layer circuit board". I've held, in my own hand, boards with more layers than this. It's not the world's first 20 layer board!

    • Re:This is not... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Chemical Boy ( 756882 )
      The company is misinformed... From the article:
      what the company believes is the world's first 20-layer circuit board.

      I have held in my hand 28 layer PCBs. Now if they said it was 20 signal layers, not including ground and power planes, so it would be more like 40 to 50 layers, now that would be something.

      However I give them full props for the thinness and the printing technology.

  • Inkjets and Epson (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gopal.V ( 532678 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @08:56AM (#10684887) Homepage Journal
    Seems to be a good match :)

    Inkjets + Epson == PCB printers

    It would be amazing to be able to print out PCBs rather than sending your diagrams to a shop. Even if this doesn't work for a production system, it would be great for hobbyists to create throwaway prototypes of circuits before sending those designs in.

    Also this brings a new way of "compiling" your circuit boards .. I wonder if raw postscript could be used to run these printers ?.

    Finally, those kids in college can really see their circuits in action rather than as blinking circles in some circuit simulator !. It's a real good feeling .... of EUPHORIA . I still remember my first bistable vibrator done on a breadboard , and seeing those leds go blink ... blink .. blink ...

    <old_voice>
    "Those days we didn't have zeros and ones either - all we had was Vcc , ground and everything in between... and we liked it" :)
    </old_voice>
    • Eeew. You put a vibrator on a breadboard?
      I'm not eating any sandwiches at your place.

      Sorry.

    • Finally, those kids in college can really see their circuits in action rather than as blinking circles in some circuit simulator !

      And of course, the kids are missing out on the fun of spending an entire lunchbreak trying to debug a simple circuit (a logic analyser) where some of the kit parts have had their polarity reversed (PNP transistors instead of NPN transistors) without anyone bothering to check.

  • This won't replace conventional PCBs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Avian visitor ( 257765 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:00AM (#10684903) Homepage
    I don't believe this technology will replace the conventional multilayer printed circuit board for some time. At least in mass produced consumer electronics. Perhaps some niche market where there is a requirement that each circuit board is different.

    The main advantage of this new technology is that it is relatively cheaper to produce a small quantity of boards because there is no high cost of making masks. Most of the money today is made with consumer electronics where there is a requirement of large series of identical boards so this is no longer such an advantage (the starting cost of mask is almost zero after 1000 or so boards).

    The article also does not mention how this type of circuit board is compatible with electronic components. I guess you can not solder SMDs to a trace that is composed of tiny silver particles. This probably means that a totaly new technology for mounting electronic components needs to be developed. The classical soldered spot is one of the most reliable components in electronics and I don't believe any new technology will surpass that anytime soon (this is not so unimportant, considering that an average circuit can have 100s or 1000s of soldered spots).

    • how about..... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zogger ( 617870 )
      ...contact cement with the same silver particles stirred into it?
    • the point is that there is no need to solder anything, or attach any components, everything is printed, circuit, components, 'chips', everything. imagine being able to download the design to a new electronic gadget (eg mp3 player) off of bittorrent, and print it out in a few hours (minutes? days? i dunno). Just think open source HARDWARE!!
    • Perhaps useful for Dual Processor systems.

      Though maybe it was developed too late... Dual core comming and all.

    • Re:This won't replace conventional PCBs (Score:4, Insightful)

      by corngrower ( 738661 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:37AM (#10685252) Journal
      The article stated that one of the advantages to this technology is the large reduction in the amount of chemicals used to produce a circuit board. This would be a big advantage for mass production of cirucit boards. A large costs for circuit board manufacturers is the handling of the chemicals and waste products, the acids, photosensitive liquids and such. One would have to have a considerable knowledge of the costs involved in each process, but you can bet that if this process is cheaper, or looks like it will be cheaper, the new process will be used.


      I can see this technology as starting point of a pcb manufacturing revolution. Connectors directly molded on to the pcb.

      • Good point. Also keep in mind that the EU has put out two key directives (which come into fore pretty soon) relating to the materials used/left over from electronics manufacturing processes:
        1. RoHS [eu.int]- Restriction on Hazardous Substances - also known as "lead free" directive but in fact includes a whole list of other stuff
        2. WEEE [eu.int] - Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment - forces producers to buy-back and recycle electronic equipment properly (no more shipping it to SE Asia)

        This new technology could certai

      • While the environmental benefits are good, I think they're likely a side-benefit to the other advantages.

        If Epson was really concerned with environmental issues, they wouldn't manufacture mass-amounts of printers which are basically more economically feasible to send to a landfill than refill...

        And no, I'm not trolling: lots of companies will go ahead with a project and say "lookie at me, I'm environmentally friendly" whilst in the background slipping poisonous chemicals into a nearby lake or something
    • The classical soldered spot is one of the most reliable components in electronics

      Historically, the failure of solder points on circuit boards was the most frequent cause of failure of early integrated ciccuit based electronic equipment.

    • Most of the money today is made with consumer electronics...

      And here I thought that most of the money was made on large, government operated printing presses. I guess those counterfieters are busier than ever with their little ink jet machines and laser printers.

    • I think the point is that the components are printed into the circuit, no need to solder. Why not print the circuit into the device may be another question.

  • As if.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:02AM (#10684918) Journal
    consumer electronics weren't already hard enough to repair. This will take them to a whole new level of discard-and-replace.

    Once upon a time there were technicians that could take any piece of consumer electronics, and given a good repair manual, trouble shoot the problem and replace the offending component.

    This creates a monopoly of sorts - since repair is impossible, the manufacturer has sole control over their product, so their profit margin increases. It behooves them to create products that cannot be repaired.

    Dan East
    • No you don't repair, you just print a second edition and send off the old one to be pulped/recycled.

    • Re:As if.. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Avian visitor ( 257765 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:19AM (#10685076) Homepage
      This will take them to a whole new level of discard-and-replace.

      I totally agree. I wonder what is better for environment: produce liquid chemical waste by making conventional circuit boards or produce a lot (potentially toxic) solid waste composed of discarded devices that can not be repaired.

      Chemicals involved in circuit board manufacturing aren't that toxic at all. Photoresist is developed with NaOH or KOH, both of which will decompose when exposed to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. HCl that is used for etching copper will also be neutralized by, for example, limestone in the environment.

      Once upon a time there were technicians that could take any piece of consumer electronics, and given a good repair manual, trouble shoot the problem and replace the offending component.

      I can't believe that today I give big bucks for an expensive instrument (e.g. osciloscope in my case) and don't even receive a circuit board chart. Not so long ago you got a circuit board chart with a cheap FM radio... And guess what? That radio is still working after 30 years (and three or four minor repairs).

    • Once upon a time there were technicians that could take any piece of consumer electronics, and given a good repair manual, trouble shoot the problem and replace the offending component.

      Ah yes, and then they developed the integrated circuit with 10,000 transistors on them. And we are in the millions today. It just isn't possible anymore to be able to repair individual components in a modern day computer with the current level of minituriziation. The only way we could do that would be to go back to havin
      • Another factor to think of:
        By making the components so small, and still having good reliability, the costs saved per unit can actually add up to be more than making a large repairable unit.

        Which would you rather have: A unit that costs $10, with an expected lifespan of 5 years, or a unit that costs $20, with life expected until the first repair needed of 5 years, and a repair cost of $5?

        Now, the ratios change around and such, but for most consumer goods, at $20-30 an hour for a repair tech, it has to be
    • The components cannot be repaired... yes.
      The components cannot be replaced... no

      Image an equivalent to the "print on demand" commercials. Replacement parts which are "printed" or created on demand. There is no need to maintain a stockage of replacement parts. Customer (or repair shop) calls up and says "I need this part," the vendor simply prints and ships.

      Will it be used this way? Hard to say. I'm guessing that probability will be proprotional to cost of total cost of end item.
    • What does it matter? You already need a 20k+ machine to rework BGAs on a conventional PCB. Why would this add complexity to the fray? I know how to solder/desolder TQFP and the like, and it takes far more time to replace one component than most consumer electronics are worth. We're already in an end-it-don't-mend-it society for these kinds of products anyway.
    • Once upon a time there were technicians that could take any piece of consumer electronics, and given a good repair manual, trouble shoot the problem and replace the offending component.

      This creates a monopoly of sorts - since repair is impossible, the manufacturer has sole control over their product, so their profit margin increases. It behooves them to create products that cannot be repaired.

      I thought it was always like this. I've never see people repair any consumer electronics. What really comes to mi
      • I guess the recourse would be the total destruction of the companies brand name when someone figured out not one of their products lived past 3 years.

        Ewan

  • Printed boards (Score:5, Interesting)

    by keithdowsett ( 260998 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:09AM (#10684966) Homepage
    I can see a couple of limitations which aren't discussed in the article.

    Firstly, thin layers of silver particles mean very limited power supplies. The thin layers of insulation will also limit the working voltage. This can be overcome so some extent by printing multiple layers, but that may cause problems in the drying/curing process.

    Secondly, the thin layer of insulation will result in significantly higher capacitance between layers. This will probably limit high frequency applications and result in every other layer being a ground plane to limit coupling in other applications.

    Still, it's a step in the right direction.

    Keith.

  • Not the first? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Unless I'm confusing my terms, the Seiko-Epson board is not the first board to hit 20 layers. As I recall, the backplane in the Sun E10K was a 27 layer board that was hand designed. Granted, it wasn't built in the same manner as the Seiko-Epson board, and they probably aren't anywhere close to the same beast.

  • dont you understand???? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by diablomonic ( 754193 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:17AM (#10685053)
    no one seems to be picking up on the implications of INKJET PRINTABLE ELECTRONICS :: Open Source Hardware!!!!! download a design for a gadget off 'hardforge', print it out, and away you go. Dont like a design feature on the latest open ipod clone: change it yourself and print a personal custom model.
    • I think this is probably the most significant observation so far in this story.

      The implications of 3d inkjet printing are perhaps more in the questions inspired than in what is produced at this time. What will be the effect of open source hardware? What happens when a desktop peripheral as economical as your printer manufactures custom computer circuitry, solar cells and batteries as cheap as wallpaper? A desktop peripheral printing all the circuits needed for it's own next generation. Or when distributors

  • Not the first 20 layer board (Score:5, Informative)

    by ghereheade ( 681897 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:19AM (#10685083)
    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!!!)
    • Perhaps not the first 20 layer PCB,
      but perhaps the first one NOT to use
      wirewrap (reflecting on a distant past
      with DEC VAX backplanes and boards).

      One of an earlier generation of prototype
      PWBs was to route out thin wires and epoxy
      over for the next layer -- expensive way to
      get that 9 layer board, but great for 1 ofs.

      Unfortunately (or fortunate for Epson), the
      inkjet printer industry's use of "smart"
      ink cartridges (and the DMCA) will kill off
      any homebrew adaptaion of this technology.
      I have a PostScript HP inkj

  • The "world's first 20-layer" statement is absurd! (Score:4, Informative)

    by BrakesForElves ( 806095 ) * on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:29AM (#10685174) Homepage
    Here's my letter to PhysOrg.com:

    Hello,

    The article...

    http://www.physorg.com/news1789.html

    ...contains an absurdly incorrect statement in its first sentence, to wit:

    "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
    • Yes, I found the claim of being the first 20-layer circuit board to be bizarre when I first read it.

      Dyconex [dyconex.com] manufacture 30-layer boards, and have done for years. Not quite as big as your 48-layer board, but still enough to debunk the claim in the article.
    • I've worked on >20 layer circuit boards, I'm pretty sure they meant something other than "the first 20 layer circuit board".
    • I agree. Between 1999 and 2002 at Pluris (now out of business), we routinely used 24-layer and 26-layer boards that were about 24x36 inches. These boards were packed very densely with BGAs and other fine-pitch surface mount parts, so the trace geometry was also very fine. This was pushing the limits of PCB fabrication; some PCB houses that claimed they could do it in fact failed to produce a single good board for us. Even the PCB houses that could do it did not get very good yields. Every bare board un

    • THEY HAVE CHANGED IT!!! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "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!
    • Looks like they've corrected this mis-statement... the article now reads:

      "Seiko Epson Corporation today announced that it has succeeded in leveraging its proprietary inkjet technology to develop ultra-thin 20-layer circuit board. "

  • Nice. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gp310ad ( 77471 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @09:35AM (#10685235) Homepage
    I can see this working very will for hybrid integrated circuit manufacturing.

    First the circuit is printed.
    Next the conductive cement is printed.
    Finally a component transfer drum 'prints' the components on to the board.

    The drum could made of a plastic on a rapid prototype machine and mounted in a loader (drum rotates and components are dropped into pockets)
    for small runs. For large runs the drum would serve as a pattern for something that woudl hold up longer.

    The result is a very rapid transition from CAD/modeling stage to large scale production.

    Refinements for projects you know from the get go are going to be big would include printed resistors and capacitors. A series of printers with multiple heads for the various 'ink' flavors would work best for this. Resistance with a few ink mixes and pattern/width for values within ranges. In this scenario you only need to 'print' active devices and larger inductors and capacitors. All else is done with the ink.

    I bet this technology will be up and running before then end of 2005 and cranking out helmet electronics for military, wrist watch cell phones, and some really cool Cracker Jack(tm) toys.

    • addendum to nice (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gp310ad ( 77471 )
      This tech isn't limited to circuits.
      one could print other chemistry (battery, sensor, display, etc) right on the board. I can see ultra thin $3 wristwatches where the watch and battery are integrated into the band.
  • They've 'printed' 20 times over the same area, each time with a different pattern. *right?!

    Of course, they've used some other special 'ink' then the regular printer-ink; a conductive /non-conductive -ink to 'print' the PCB. *neat'o*

    As, Avian visitor (257765), (#10684903) [slashdot.org] said " it is relatively cheaper to produce a small quantity of boards" thus "Most of the money today is made with consumer electronics where there is a requirement of large series of identical boards so this is no longer such an adva

  • Unless this new technology is vastly different from existing ones, it will be good for them and bad for us. I've dealt with very thin boards a few times and I hate them! Why you say?

    Ultra thin boards break their solder joints very easily. Thermal cycling seems to affect thinner boards more than thicker ones and leads to bad solder joints. Unless the resulting boards are small and have a LOT of mounting points they flex and break, especially if the boards are large.

    Unless the thing can flex like an acor

  • neutron_p (Score:4, Informative)

    by bleckywelcky ( 518520 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @10:45AM (#10686040)
    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 [slashdot.org]

    Do we have another Roland on our hands? Why not just post a link to the original story on the original news site?

  • Printing (Score:3, Informative)

    by ajs318 ( 655362 ) <sd_resp2NO@SPAMearthshod.co.uk> on Monday November 01, 2004 @10:50AM (#10686102)
    I'm not the first person to point out that 20 layers is nothing. It's unusual, for sure; most "low-tech" boards in appliances are just 2-layer, or even 1-layer. It takes a lot of wire links to make it worth going to double-sided; not only have you got to do two lots of photography and line them up to within a few um. and plate through the holes, but double-sided PCB material is almost always FR4 {glass fibre} whereas single-sided boards may be FR2 {SRBP} or CEM1 {paper / woven ceramic fibre}. The problem is that the through-hole plating -- which joins one layer to another -- doesn't take well in the cheaper materials. So, unless you have good creepage and clearance or physical space reasons, it's preferable to use wire links. If your VCD machine {Variable Centres Distance -- i.e. two-ended through-hole placement} has the capability to cut wire links off a reel of bare tinned copper wire, as opposed to requiring wire links on tape and reel, so much the better. {When you're not populating PCBs with the VCD machine, or if you have a lot of radial [single ended] parts on your boards such as electrolytic capacitors, you can use the sequencer for assembling kits of parts for hand placement.}

    Another problem with multi-layer boards is vias {a via is a plated-through hole just used for connecting one layer to another, not carrying a component lead}. The way the plating process works means that all copper layers will be joined to each other. So you can't join, say 1-2 and 4-5 at the same hole; and you soon run out of sites if you aren't very careful. So more than 10 layers is rare, because there is usually a better way to do what you were trying to do.

    Still, with 20 layers it's possible to print actual coils, not just bent bits of wire that only look like a coil at UHF and above, and capacitors. A printed coil ought to be more reliable than a wound one. Perhaps we'll start seeing more circuits that use real inductances!
  • Am I the only one who read 'multiPlayer ciruit board' and though 'deathmatch in hardware .. crazy, but interesting' ? :)

  • Where's my E&M textbook? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CrazyWingman ( 683127 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @11:36AM (#10686705) Journal
    It seems like this would mean you would have to worry even more about how you laid out the traces on your board. Since they will be even closer together between layers, I would think there would be a greater risk of capacitance between them. That could cause some rather strange behavior. Sadly, though, I don't have my E&M textbook handy, though, so I can't check the math on distance/voltage limits here. I suppose the board will have to be run at a lower voltage anyway to keep from melting, no? Sorry, I didn't go to Seiko's site to look for specs, just the news article. So, if these questions have been answered already, I appologize.
    • The original WW2 VT fuses used silver conductive ink, circa 1942. This isnt new.
    • IIRC the old circa 1977 Vax cards were near 30 layers.
    • More layers isnt necessarily better-- it imples a lot of crossing wires, which is often the result of bad design.
    • Silver nanospheres are not going to carry much current.... You probably couldnt make a PC motherboard or high-speed bus this way.
    • Insulating ink between layers is going to give whoppingly large capacitance and crosstalk between layers. Not good.
    • Most buses
  • I wonder if the conductive ink will decay over time? Similar to the way that dye in a recordable CD fades. Maybe each board will have to be printed with an estimated expiration date.
  • So after my sorta' incendiary post about the PhysOrg's original "world's first 20-layer circuit board" headline being absurd, I went back and surfed the article to see the corrected headline. Got a good laugh out of the content of the Goooooogle ad that popped up just below the headline:

    PCB Manufacturing
    Order Quality PCBs 2 to 24 Layers. 12-Hour Turns & Same-Day Shipping.

    Apparently Epson's breakthrough in layer counts caught on in record time!

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