Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1104607
26 PCB007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2019 Ezhilarasu: Yes, and I think that's one of the main selling points. Conventional flexible hybrids use printing to define the interconnects. The prob - lem with printing is that you're limited by the wire pitches that you can achieve. You can typi- cally achieve course pitches in the hundreds-of-microns range, as well as interconnects that have a higher sheet resistance because they are usually made with some sort of nanoparticle- based ink. The main thing that limits the pitch that we can achieve is the die shift. What ends up hap- pening is that when you cure the molding compound, it ex- erts forces on the die that can shift it by a small amount. The- oretically, that's what limits our wire pitch. We can demonstrate up to 20 microns interconnect pitch at the moment with the die shift that we have. But if we reduce the die shift further, and because we use silicon pro- cessing, there's no limit to what pitch we can attain. We can even go down to one micron. ______________________ Before we finished, I circled back around to Sameeksha and Emma who shared a bit more detail about the programs at Arizona State Uni- versity that created this opportunity for them to attend FlexTech/MEMS Conference. Nolan Johnson: Emma, what year in school are you? Emma Pedersen: I'm in my second year of un- dergrad. Johnson: And Sameeksha, you're a doctoral candidate? Sameeksha Katoch: Yes. Johnson: You're obviously very involved in this program as a mentor, and this is just one of the projects that you're doing under the program. Tell me about the program. Katoch: We have one program throughout the summer and one throughout the semester. In the summer, it depends on what project is underway in the lab, but our lab primarily works on machine learning and sensor analyt- UCLA student poster competition by Goutham Ezhilarasu.