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18 The PCB Magazine • November 2015 amount of borrowing of technology and test methods from the RF and analog world is mak- ing its way into the digital design realm. Semico Research hosted an exchange on Oct 13 be- tween the silicon and the bare-board industries, discussing how technologists can get to data speeds of 56 GB/s per channel with a 112 GB/s strategy expected to follow. Signal integrity experts such as Lee Ritchey of Speeding Edge, Scott McMorrow of Samtech, and Heidi Barnes of Keysight focused on the physics challenges of pushing copper and PCB production tech- nologies to these speeds. Michael Gay of Isola explained the manufacturing methods of base materials and how Isola will provide next gen- eration materials to meet these design needs. The collaboration with the silicon designers helps everyone understand what is important to each group in order to realize these speeds in the entire chip-to-chip signal chain (chip-pack- age-interposer-linecard-connector-backplane- return). In some cases, chip designers have the silicon space on the ASIC to build pre-compen- sation or eye-opener circuits in the die. How- ever, for most applications, these speeds will mean increasingly tight signal integrity budgets on the circuit boards. This means that low loss and skew mitigation materials are very impor- tant. The next generation of designs will likely require highly specialized materials, and very well-controlled PCB manufacturing processes. This effort will necessitate collaboration, com- munication and cooperation between fabrica- tors, designers, materials manufacturers and OEMs on an unprecedented scale. What does all this have to do with my bottom line? The IoT roadmap, if realized, means a sig- nificant amount of growth in all segments of the North American PCB market. First, there will be a significant development in ASICs, FBGAs and other silicon products that will require burn-in boards and automated test equipment boards (Figure 6). Companies like Gorilla Circuits, TTM, Sanmina and Multitest will be see good opportunities in this business supporting companies like Qualcomm, Xylinx and Altera, as well as numerous Semiconduc- tor OSATs (outsourced semiconductor and test) who will be building ASICS and packaging for a new generation of IoT ori- ented fabless semiconduc- tor players. Second, there will be the edge devices in both the PCB and printed elec- tronics space. This will mean a significant num- ber of prototypes of new technology systems for shops like Flex Intercon- nect, Lenthor Engineering and Protech. These will include prototypes for the household name mobile phone and tablet makers as well as a litany of new companies, some of them well-funded startups, making novel sensor pack- ages in spaces like medi- cal, wearables and home automation. The Flexible Figure 6: a burn-in board for aSIcs. (Source: micro control company) puTTing iT All TogeTher WHAT IS THe InTerneT oF THInGS AnD WHy SHoULD IT MATTer To US?