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24 The PCB Magazine • September 2014 ALuMINuM BASE CIRCuIT TECHNOLOGy continues Next, the number of manufacturing steps is reduced significantly, lessening manufactur- ing cost. What should be highly evident is that the entire soldering process with its many steps and requirements is omitted. No stenciling of solder, no paste inspection, no reflow, no post- assembly cleaning, etc. There is also no need to be concerned with moisture sensitivity of figure 3: solderless aluminum substrates can potentially be stacked and interconnected and even "bolted" together using mezzanine connectors to create aluminum bricks that may simultaneously solve a range of problems related to both performance by creating shortest path routing and the thermal challenges that often accompanies higher performance. note that optical interconnection opportunities also exist as optical ports are commonly provided on the edges and/or the bottom of optical devices making provision of stable optical channels.