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SEPTEMBER 2023 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 77 been around for a while and have brought the capability of line width and space down to the 1–3 mil level. mSAP began in the IC substrate industry but has proliferated throughout PCB manufacturing shops for use with HDI prod- ucts. ese processes utilize a layer of base cop- per on the substrate between 5 and 2 microns to achieve line width reductions. However, production of sub-1-micron traces requires the ultra-thin 0.2-micron layer of liquid ink used in the A-SAP process. A-SAP e pioneer of UHDI processing is Averatek, which has brought its A-SAP™ process to mar- ket. A-SAP stands for "Averatek Semi-Additive Process" and is the industry leader in this tech- nology. American Standard Circuits has part- nered with Averatek on the technology which allows for the manufacture of PCBs with line width and space down to 15 microns. Some of the benefits of using A-SAP are: • Significant size and weight reduction • Improved reliability and signal integrity • Improved RF performance • Reduced costs • Biocompatibility ese processes have allowed devices like cellphones to continually shrink in size while increasing functionality. As technology con- tinues to push everything smaller and faster while integrating with other devices, UDHI is here for the foreseeable future. Anaya Vardya is president and CEO of American Standard Circuits; co-author of The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to… Fundamentals of RF/Microwave PCBs and Flex and Rigid-Flex Fundamentals. He is the author of Thermal Management: A Fabricator's Perspective and The Companion Guide to Flex and Rigid-Flex Fundamentals. Visit I-007eBooks.com to download these and other free, educational titles. Most people know that the nervous system in humans and other animals sends electric impulses. But do plants also have electrical sig- nals even though they lack a nervous system? Yes, plants have electrical signals that are gen- erated in response to touch and stress factors, such as wounds caused by herbivores and attacks on their roots. It turns out that in some plants electrical sig- nals are correlated with rapid movements. The carnivorous plant Venus Flytrap (Dionaea mus- cipula) is used by researchers as a model system for fast electrical signalling in plants. Electrical signaling in living organisms is based on a difference in voltage between the inside of cells and the outside environment. This differ- ence in voltage is created when ions, i.e., elec- trically charged atoms, are moved between the inside and the outside of the cell. There is ample knowledge about how nerve impulses function in humans and other animals. But when it comes to plants, which do not have a nervous system, a lot remains to be discovered. This new technology was developed by researchers at Linköping University in collabora- tion with researchers from Columbia University, who use this technology for neuroscience stud- ies in animals. (Source: Linköping University) Fast Electrical Signals Mapped in Plants With New Tech