Thinking Outside the Plane

9 responses to “Thinking Outside the Plane”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Nov 6, 2011 at 10:11 pm

   Overall schematic:
   

   Here is the corresponding section of the circuit diagram:

   

   And assembly instructions from the margins of the blueprints ("item 1" is intriguing):
   

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2. 

   avlxyz

   Nov 7, 2011 at 12:51 am

   There’s been a bit going on in the area of "stacked 3D silicon" for a few years now:
   ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fiee…

   maybe 3D isn’t so archaic after all 🙂
   http://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/item/23462-ibm-plans-3...
   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through-silicon_via
   http://www.xilinx.com/technology/roadmap/ssi-technology.htm

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3. 

   Jim Rees

   Nov 7, 2011 at 1:32 am

   I have a 1947 TV at home with a 5Kv supply. Doesn’t look anything like this but it is pretty 3D.

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4. 

   scleroplex

   Nov 7, 2011 at 2:42 am

   agreed!

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5. 

   solerena

   Nov 7, 2011 at 3:24 am

   love the title:):) good weekend to all…

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6. 

   obskura

   Nov 7, 2011 at 4:30 pm

   Very cool "out-of-the-box" thinking 🙂
   I wonder what Item 1 is? I first thought it’s solder paste (needs to be chilled – not the sort of thing colleagues appreciate next to their lunch boxes… 😉 ). But it says later "bake at 100 deg C", which isn’t enough for solder to melt. Maybe some conductive Epoxy?
   I wonder what they call this sort of assembly – it’s certainly not "surface mount" 🙂

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7. 

   jurvetson

   Nov 7, 2011 at 4:58 pm

   I think there was a debate between "flapjacks" and "tower of power". =)

   And yeah, I initially wrote that "item 1 appears to be conductive epoxy" from the instructions 1-3, but then I was not so sure.

   The 3D "flying wires" reminds me of the Tektronix oscilloscope with tubes and discrete components hand-soldered into a gorgeous hairball. That reminds me that I should take a macro shot of the innards.

   [http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz] – 3D is the final frontier but I suspect it will require a reboot of the transistor (lower heat – slow and low) and interconnect (dynamically grown with massive fanout). Here are some of my early musings on 3D and a likely bifurcation of Moore’s Law.

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8. 

   obskura

   Nov 7, 2011 at 7:23 pm

   I’m currently waiting for the day when 3D printing can do both metals and plastic (conductors and insulators) in the same process and at high resolution. Then all you need to add is a pick’n’place head for the components… and write some incredibly powerful software to help you design and layout tightly integrated 3D circuits 🙂 The benchmark would be to print a complete robot with gears, motors and electronics in one print run without assembly 🙂
   (of course, getting rid of printed circuits altogether and doing everything in silicon would be better… to some extent this exists already for microsystems, where multiple dies are directly bonded with gold wire into a custom casing – the miniature, hight tech version of the "rat’s nest" 🙂 ).

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9. 

   Gone-Walkabout

   Nov 8, 2011 at 4:44 am

   as the adage states KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid. We tend to over complicate things, often it’s best to take a step back & try from another angle.

   Reply