E-NEWSLETTER l January 2022
A MESSAGE FROM OUR CEO
Experts in the Ormet Paste Process

As always, we at American Standard Circuits focus on the future. We know that one of the most important things we can do is to stay abreast of all up and coming technologies that will make us a better PCB fabrication company, ultimately allowing us to serve our customers better.

In this issue we are highlighting the Ormet Paste Process and how it helps with thick board layer reduction as well as combining mixed dielectrics. The Ormet Process products allow us to interconnect materials electronically while bonding them mechanically creating a solid z-axis connection during the lamination process. Check out the technical article in this newsletter which should help you define whether this a viable solution for your specific needs. In fact, we have a webinar available where you can find out more about z-axis parameters and controls.

For the past three years now, we have continually strived to help educate our customers on the various facets of the PCB industry and its technology. In 2022 our goal is to offer even more of these educational opportunities.
We are especially happy to be starting a new series called “The Designer’s Toolbox” where our expert engineers will be talking to Freedom Cad’s expert designers, discussing ways PCB designers and fabricators can work together to develop the best printed circuit boards possible.

It promises to be a great year for all of us and we hope you’ll come along for the ride. Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2022!

Sincerely,

Anaya Vardya
President and CEO
American Standard Circuits
PCB Designers Toolbox Webinar Series
ASC is starting a new live monthly webinar series which will also be available on demand after the live session. We will cover various aspects of PCB Manufacturing and their interaction with the PCB Design process. We will be providing with helpful suggestions on improving your design for manufacturability and cost effective solutions. We will also expose you to new technologies that may be useful to you. Currently we have scheduled the next three webinars.

  • Feb 23, 2022: PCB Manufacturing process and implications to design
  • Mar 23, 2022: Fundamentals of Flex and Rigid Flex
  • Apr 20, 2022: Best Practices for Fabrication Notes
Solve Micro Pitched BGA & High Density Circuits Reliably with Ormet® Z-Axis Interconnects
Often people are afraid to use a technology they’re not familiar with, so my hope is to familiarize you with a solution called, “Ormet® Z-Axis Interconnects” that American Standard Circuits is eager to help you utilize. This product has experienced industry acceptance for over a decade and today’s circuit challenges are requiring innovation to meet these challenges.  Today’s designs are pushing the barriers on several fronts simultaneously, such as: High-speed circuitry that must meet signal integrity concerns, advanced packaging with µBGA pin pitch requiring (HDI) High-Density Interconnect solutions, along with advanced drilling requirements that can’t be solved with the traditional manufacturing process, such as, back to back buried vias. Ormet® Z-Axis Interconnects meets these challenges head-on. You’ll see it does so reliably with a cost-effective approach.
 
Ormet® Z-Axis Interconnects are created with a material and process that conductively paste fills a via on any layer, rather than plating the via wall for Z-Axis connectivity. The paste material is an alloy formed from Copper and Tin/Bismuth and the process is called, “(TLPS) Transient Liquid Phase Sintering.” In this article, we are not going to inform you on how the fabricators implement this solution, rather, we wish to explain how you can solve your circuit challenges by utilizing Ormet® Z-Axis Interconnects.
 
The overview of design challenges we will cover are as follows: 
·       Reduced Lamination Cycles - Saving time & money
·       Any-Layer-Vias   HDI = Design freedom
·       Eliminate High-Aspect-Vias, used on high layer count boards
·       Eliminate Back-Drilling, no stubs on high-speed signals
·       Increase routing resources

In today’s circuits, µBGAs with a pin-pitch of .65mm or below requires the implementation of HDI. This is no longer a choice but a requirement. The standard method to fabricate these boards is using laser drilled µVias and sequential lamination, whereby a core set of layers typically will have many process steps in a build-up fashion: Adding layers with lamination cycles, drill, etch and plate. Many common HDI builds require 3-5 lamination cycles. Each lamination cycle can consist of approximately 30-50 process steps. Each one of these process steps can add a significant number of days to the fabrication build, with the sum total ranging from 3-5 weeks. All of this adds cost, schedule delays, and threatens long term reliability as the board re-enters a thermal excursion from the lamination heat press multiple times.
Reduced Lamination Cycles - Saving Time & Money
 
The left image illustrates the conventional method requiring 5 lamination cycles and the right image illustrates the same board completed in half the time with 2 lamination cycles using Ormet® TLPS. This allows the fabricator to apply via paste to add the outer layers and accomplish the same construction with a total of 2 lamination press cycles with approximately 150 fewer process steps. This can result in faster build time at lower costs.
Elimination of High Aspect Ratio Vias on High Layer Count Boards
 
High layer count boards with small drill sizes result in drill/plate aspect ratios that are extremely difficult to build with any reliability. In the Ormet® TLPS example on the right side, we would build 4 sub-lam constructions and then join them together with Ormet® paste inside of three pre-preg layers. This transforms an 18/1 aspect ratio drill into four 5/1 aspect ratio drills. The side benefit is you can use the vias only where it is needed, thus creating significant routing resources, and improving signal integrity as well.
High-speed Signals with No Backdrilling
 
Ormet® TLPS eliminates controlled-depth backdrilling requirements for high-speed signals, thus eliminating parasitic stubs, also significantly increasing routing resources that backdrilling prohibits. Backdrilling has always been a risky design concern and a field reliability concern. 
Ormet® TLPS – Any Layer Via usage has been used extensively in the Package Design sector of electronics since its inception. This is the transposer board that is used on most BGA packages. The die (Chip-on-board) routes vertically to the BGA balls on the bottom side of this BGA interposer board. These interposer boards often will have many layers with very thin dielectric thicknesses. This Any Layer Via usage on thin boards is the only method to route Package Designs.
5G Next Generation Innovation for HSD-RF Hybrid Technology
 
Ormet® TLPS can be the only solution to solve some of the newer challenges of HSD-RF Hybrid technology boards as used in the 5G world. The complexity of hybrid circuits that combine fine pitch µBGAs along with circuit requirements of High-Speed Digital, RF, Printed Antennas, and significant thermal concerns can only be met with this form of HDI. This is compounded by the fact that boards with antennas often make for a fabrication nightmare based on their unbalanced construction and uneven layer counts.
Discuss these ideas early with your fabricators’ engineering team. We’re encouraging you to evolve your thinking from, “Design For Manufacturing,” to, “Design With your Manufacturer!”
Our E-BOOKS ARE DOING GREAT
FLEX AND RIGID-FLEX FUNDAMENTALS  4,944 DOWNLOADS       
FUNDAMENTALS OF RF/MICROWAVE PCBS                                                4,493 DOWNLOADS
PCB FUNDAMENTALS                                                                                      3,793 DOWNLOADS
THERMAL MANAGEMENT A FABRICATOR’S PERSPECTIVE                     2,240 DOWNLOADS
Our Experts are one reason why American Standard Circuits is North America's leading independent PCB fabricator. Our entire experienced and professional staff is ready and able to make your next PCB project easy!