Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1269815
JUNE 2020 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 77 Johnson: There wasn't much that had to be done on the CAD tool side. Dickson: Maybe there was a lot of work done on how to do those concepts, but once they got the concepts, they were able to leverage them pretty quickly. The hardest part involving VeCS from a software standpoint is the CAD opera- tion and learning how to use VeCS concepts— not necessarily learning how to use the CAD tools. There are so many different types of structures that you can build, and that's one of the reasons I posted the latest one that I did. It's a 0.35-millimeter by 0.5-millimeter HDI interposer in single lamination, and no tech- nology on the market can do that. However, it's pretty easy to do in VeCS. It's a relatively conventional VeCS interconnect structure, but that can be embedded in a PCB or done inside the CAD tools. The techniques and operation of routing with through-hole in HDI—along with columnar routing with VeCS in very tight, dense structures—is unique to this technology. You can build out either very large BGA contacts or very dense, small-fit structures that could not be built with traditional PCBs to- day—at least not in technology I've seen. new routing, drilling machines, and controlled depth capability beyond where we were when we first started. These allowed the technology to evolve now to a point where we have what we consider, in those steps, robust processes to perform VeCS even better than we did when we first started. And these technologies are continuing to evolve. Johnson: What started as a technique that could use existing machines, requiring zero additional investment in equipment, benefits from going to an equipment optimization step. It's good when it's general-purpose but it's better when optimized. Dickson: Yes. In the beginning, it's like a chick- en or an egg; you start something and want the equipment to match the technology capabili- ty, but you have to move that out. And that's also true from the software side. In the begin- ning, one of the limiters with the technology was that the CAD tools had never seen this before. They had no idea how to even use a slot signal vertical connection with their soft- ware systems. All of the major CAD designers were challenged to utilize that. Now, most of them have the capability of doing this and are able to work with OEMs on how to utilize their systems with minor changes on some of them, but some of them already have the capability built into their systems. Johnson: PCB designers have an obligation to look at manufacturing in different ways, too. How did the CAD tools adjust to support VeCS? Dickson: Each one was a little bit different. I don't know how much of it is confidential IP, but I can tell you the end results were positive. By the way, that is not my background. The early adopters didn't seem to require special automated tools to create the VeCS structures. They were able to utilize most of their cur- rent technologies with their current tools and were able to work around the CAD via struc- ture concept and create VeCS structures that utilize DFM rule basis where it created VeCS- type structures. Joe Dickson