passive integration

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Passive Integration Seminar Report 03 INTRODUCTION Miniat uriz ati on has been a key contri butor to advances in ele ctr onic technology. Certainly, miniaturization has been made possible mostly through remarkable breakthroughs in reducing the size of active components. But as integr ated circuits get smaller and more complex, there is an increasin g need to also reduce the space required for the supporti ng passive components . If any of the electronic devices such as cell pho ne, camc or der, comput er , or other  consumer electronics system is opened, one or two circuit boards on which are mounted a few int egrate d ci rcui ts and dozens and dozens of tin y discr et e devices-resistors, capacitors, inductors etc can be seen. It is those so-called  passive devices that dominate the board’s real estate. Many electron ics applications have serious space considera tions that are  pressuring manufacturers to reduce component size. Much of the moti vation for this has come from military and aerospace needs, but today's miniaturization demands are more lik el y to come from other market segments inc ludin g tel ecommu nic atio ns (ce llul ar phon es) , compute rs (la ptop s), ins trumentat ion (handheld devices), and medical electronics (pacemakers). Such applications continue to drive size reduction in components for commercial uses as well as for applications with ver y high reliabilit y requir ements, such as lif esa ving medical equipment. However, simply reducing the case size of a part is not always the most effective way to miniaturize. Consequently, passive component manufacturers have begun to combine discrete components into volumetric- efficient multielement packages. By combining discrete passive components into multielement packages, designers can save more board space than by simply reducing the size of the components themselves. Dept. of ECE MESCE Kuttippuram 1

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Passive integration suggests that if the passives were so small and flat,

then they could be inserted between layers of the circuit board itself, rather than

taking space on top of it. The electronic devices could be thinner and sleeker

than they are today, or they could contain more electronics, or if it is a phone can

have much larger batteries and therefore longer talk time and brighter color

screens. The same goes for almost every device from PDAs to portable DVD

players.

The integrated passives would be a part of the circuit board itself, formed

when the board was, so odds are good that their overall cost could eventually be

less than what manufacturers pay today to buy and solder on discrete devices.

Speaking of solder, eliminating it is another advantage of integration, because

bad solder joints are one of the most common reasons electronic gear fails. Less

solder also means less harm from lead waste.

The list of advantages goes on: putting the passives "underground" leaves

more room on the surface of the board for ICs, which means more design

flexibility. And there are electrical benefits, too. Because current travels along a

different path in integrated capacitors than in surface-mounted components,

integrated capacitors can be made freer of the trace amounts of the inductance,

called parasitic inductance, that plagues any capacitor and limits usefulness in

high-frequency circuits. Finally, because the components are custom-made whenthe board is, the resistors, capacitors, and inductors can be sized to any desired

value, rather than being chosen from a manufacturer's list of available parts.

Advantages like these point to a potentially huge shift for the electronics

industry. Over a trillion passive components were bonded to boards last year,

according to the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative's road map. These

devices are minuscule, and that makes putting them in place a chore. The

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smallest discrete passives today measure 0.50 mm by 0.25 mm; spread on a

sheet of paper, they'd look like ground pepper. Such compact components are

difficult to handle and attach, even for automated assembly equipment. And

though the total cost of each part—including capital, assembly, and the prorated

cost of the underlying board—is less than two cents on average, collectively the

impact of integrated passives on system cost, reliability, and, most of all, size,

could be enormous.

But for these passives to make a big dent in the US $18-billion-a-year

market for discrete passive components, makers of circuit boards will have to

reposition themselves as purveyors of passive electronic networks. It's starting to

happen, but slowly. Such manufacturers as Gould, Shipley, Ohmega,

MacDermid, DuPont, Oak-Mitsui, 3M, and Sanmina all market products and

processes for integrating resistors directly into printed-circuit boards, using at

least four different technologies; and for integrating capacitors, using at least

five. These sizable companies have all poured tens of millions of dollars in R&D

funds into proving the concept. In the meantime, several other companies,

including California Micro Devices Corp. and AVX Corphave been working on

an alternative approach to integrating passives. They are selling arrays and

networks of miniaturized passive devices in single IC-like packages.

In a sense, the situation with passive components today is a lot like that of

active devices 40 years ago, when Intel, Fairchild, and others had just introducedICs that combined active devices like transistors and diodes on a single

substrate. But don't expect Moore's Law to apply to passives. These components

cannot be scaled down into the submicron realm occupied by active devices. The

reason, of course, is that passive components have to handle signals whose

amplitude cannot be reduced arbitrarily—say, microwave signals going to a

cellphone antenna or inputs for analog-to-digital conversion. Despite this

fundamental limit, passive integration will make for much more miniaturization.

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NEED FOR PASSIVE INTEGRATION

Passive components refer to such kind of electrical components that

cannot generate power. Typical components are resistors, capacitors and

inductors. The primary functions of passive components are to manage buses,

bias, decouple Ics, by-pass, filter, tune, convert, and sense and protect. It is a

huge, multi-billion business, supporting the various electronic products in

automotive, telecommunications, computer and consumer industries, both for

digital and analog-digital applications. There are a large number of passive

components that are used in consumer electronic products such as VCRs,

camcorders, television tuners, and other communication devices. Most of the

passive components nowadays are discrete surface mount passive components

that directly mount on the surface of the printed circuit board. It is called as

discrete passive component-a singular component enclosed in a single case that

must be mounted to an interconnecting substrate. Passive components are

commonly referred to as “glue components” since they “glue” integrated circuits

together to make the system.

Surface mount technology was starting to take deep root in our industry

in early 80’s and is fully developed till today. In the early days, surface mount

components were many times more expensive than through hole componentsand new surface mount assembly equipment costs were off the charts. As time

went on, the cost of the components, assembly equipment and all of the other

infrastructure came down, today it is less expensive to build a surface mount

assembly than a through hole assembly. However, the faster bus speeds required

new technology. PCB traces have always had transmission line characteristics

and are more sensitive at subnano-second rise times. The package lead

inductance and line capacitance have greater impact on signal integrity. The

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integrated circuit industry is achieving faster speeds by shrinking technology; it

follows that the passive solution must also shrink. In addition to these, the need

to drive out every cent of costs, miniaturization, improved product reliability and

the passive to active ratios have caused to seriously consider much higher levels

of passive integration than in the past. Then comes the idea of integral passives.

Integral passives are noted as passive components embedded within or on

the surface of a substrate. These are distinguished from discrete chips and also

from integrated(multiple passive functionality within a single package).It is a

part of the printed circuit board using some type of material to make resistors,

capacitors or inductors. The requirement for integral resistors, capacitors and

inductors are:

Resistors:

A primary requirement for integral resistors is that they be size competitive

with the chip resistor. It dictates that the largest dimension be of the order of

1.0mm.Cost considerations dictate that trimming should not be required to

obtain a 5%-10% tolerance. The range of values used,from one ohm to one

mega-ohm dictates that if that range was implemented there would be

insufficient numbers in the tails of the value distribution to justify integrating the

full range.

Capacitors:

Discrete capacitors are used in larger number and greater density than any

other discrete passive component. There are atleast two distinct application

potentials for integration, one in which the polymer or ceramic board itself

provides dielectric and capacitor plates within the interconnection; and the

second, wherein progressively higher dielectric constant materials make

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increasingly larger capacitance feasible. There is a possibility to eliminate about

40% of the discrete capacitors in a hand held product by simply designing low

value capacitors into one or more of the two level interconnection patterns

normally used.

Inductors:

Inductors are currently used in such low quantities,that the equivalent per part

cost will probably be too high to incorporate any special processes or materials.

High values are best attained with conventional discrete parts.However,about

80% of the inductors used in a hand held product are low enough in value, that

they can be incorporated directly into wiring of a suitable substrate.They require

fine line capability small vias and thin dielectrics.Careful attention to design will

be necessary due to coupling to nearby metal..

History is repeating itself using the same benefits and arguments,the bottom

line is embedded passives.

Integrated passive components (RC circuits) and passive component arrays

(MLC capacitors, MLV transient suppressors, and thick-film resistors) used in

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medical electronics

COMPARISON BETWEEN EMBEDDED

AND DISCRETE PASSIVES

The generic single board computer ,nowadays is generally composed of

5% integrated circuits,4% connectors,40% capacitors,33% resistors and 18%

miscellaneous parts.Clearly resistors and capacitors are the majority of

components on any generic PCB.The target is to reduce the number of SMT

resistors from 33% of the total components to 10%, increase the yield, while

allowing the designers better signals and more surface real estate. The obvious

advantages that embedded passives have over discrete passives are in size,

weight, cost and performance. First, the discrete passives, though occupy various

space in various product, will occupy at a minimum of 5% of the surface area,

which can be saved by using embedded passives. Then,when the number of

passive components is large, the cost of conversion to place surface mount

passive components will be quite large, including purchase, stocking, placement,

test, repair and warranty service. But for embedded passives, it can be reduced

by some sort of parallel process. The third, surface mount resistors and

capacitors have inherent parasitic functionalities, due to their geometries.

Perhaps the most important is the parasitic inductance associated with the

capacitors. This inductance affects performance at high frequency, and thus

limits digital signaling rates. On the contrary, embedded passives should reduce

or eliminate the parasitics associated with the current passive packages. Besides,

there are some intangible benefits for embedded passives. Improved wireability,

higher reliability, reduction in part numbers, higher throughput in manufacturing

assembly and increased yield in manufacturing assembly. The improved

wireability is feasible based on personal experience. The reduction in part

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numbers is all readily apparent, it remains to be seen what impact there is on a

large scale. The reliability, throughput and yield all need to proven before any

real credibility can be given.

On the other hand, integral passives have limits too. They cannot provide

wide range of resistor values. And tight tolerances are needed on their values.

This also exists for embedded capacitors. In addition to these, the embedded

passives need to hold their values over time and temperature. To solve these

problems, new materials and low cost processes are needed for embedded

passive technology. The last problem is that even simple engineering changes

cannot be made to an integral passive substrate. Therefore consistent and rapid

turnaround of prototype designs is needed for fabricators.

Embedded passives Discrete passives

Overall cost Low High

Circuit board costs Low High

Manufacturing cost Low High

Rework costs Low HighBoard area consumed Small Large

Machine set up time Fast Long

Yield High Low

Electrical performance Better Good

Components cost High Low

Materials costs High Low

Design/development Slow Fast

Requiring designer training More Less

Time to market Long Fast

Design flexibility Little Large

Risk High Low

Comparison between integral and discrete passives

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INTEGRATED PASSIVE TECHNOLOGY

The technologies available for the packaging of microelectronics at thattime were generally thick film and thin film circuits hermetically sealed in a

package made of ceramic or metal with glass to metal feed-throughs. The need

for a package, interconnect board plus discrete components complicated the

assembly of the hybrid microcircuit and increased volume and weight

requirement.A new technology that could integrate these three functions would

dramatically reduce size and assembly complexity with concurrent

improvements in cost and reliability.

None of then existing technologies were suitable for all three functions.

The cofired ceramic could provide a durable hermetic package but was limited

to refractory metal systems due to the high firing temperatures. There are several

disadvantages: high trace resistances, a requirement of plating for all exposed

metal to provide for corrosion resistance and subsequent metallurgical

connections, and firing in a reducing atmosphere which limited the range of

cofirable film components which could be included.

Thick and thin films use gold, silver or copper metallurgy which have

excellent conductivity and do not require plating while being, except for copper.

Thick films, however, were not in general dense or strong enough for use in

building hermetic packages and were expensive when used for high count

multiplayer interconnect structures.

Low Temperature Cofired Ceramics(LTTC) was seen as a potential

solution for achieving a new integrated packaging technology from a

combination of thick film and low temperature cofired dielectrics .LTTC has

many advantages such as it allows high density of lines throughout the part, be

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able to construct various geometries of interconnects by layer cut outs, good

heat transfer ability, etc. In addition to offering competitive capabilities in

packaging and interconnection, LTTC has a clear advantage over other

technologies in the area of integral passive components. They are

• Reduction in the number of contacts and transitions: traditional

assembly has the internal contacts of the components themselves, the

transition to the attachment material and then to the interconnect. By

integrating these transitions, the associated losses are reduced

dramatically.

• Increasing reliability : Failures occur primarily at transitions or

interfaces between materials. Reducing the number of transitions

increase the reliability.

• Cost saving : Few additional steps are required for component

integration and a large number of assembly steps are eliminated.

• Density saving : Component size and component count are the typical

drivers for assembly size. The same components can be effectively

spread ”two dimensionally” within the package substrate or the package

itself in traditionally unused or waste area.

• LTTC provides wider components value range compare to other

technologies.0.1Ω to 10 MΩ for resistors under the tolerance of 25%,

4pF to 0.04µF for capacitors with the typical tolerance from 5 to 10%,

15nH to over three order of magnitude inductors with the tolerance

around 5%.

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Integrated passive technologies are not exactly new. They have been used

for decades in the ceramic substrates that underlie circuits in military,

microwave, and mainframe computer systems. But those represent a specialty

within the electronics market. The vast majority of circuit boards today are made

using FR4, the ubiquitous green epoxy insulator reinforced with glass fiber. FR4

boards are formed by sandwiching alternating layers of insulator with etched

copper circuit traces and laminating them under heat and pressure. Drilled

holes, or vias, plated with copper, connect conductor segments on different

layers to form circuit interconnects.

A smaller but growing portion of the circuit board market has been going

to "flex," which are laminated stacks of unreinforced polyimide (Kapton),

polyester, or layers of other polymer film, each 25 to 125 µm thick, with copper

traces on one or both sides. Because the polymer layers can be thinner, enabling

smaller vias, flex allows more interconnects to be crammed into a given area

than is possible with FR4. But flex costs more per square centimeter than FR4.

In both FR4 and flex, the presence of organic material limits their

processing temperatures to about 250 °C, far below the 800 to 1200 °C used in

processing ceramic substrates. So to put passives within the layers of FR4 and

flex boards, engineers had to come up with new techniques.

The components in these boards can be no thicker than a single layer of

the board, maybe only a few micrometers. So for all intents and purposes, the

devices are planar rather than three-dimensional. Manufacturers are using

several different techniques, including sputtering, plating, chemical vapor

deposition, screen-printing, and anodization, to deposit various film materials to

produce the passives. All of those deposition methods are compatible with the

250 °C limit for FR4 and flex. Depending on the process, technicians can add

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material just where it is needed, or cover an entire board layer with it and then

subtract material where it is not wanted.

For example, resistors can be formed by bridging two copper

interconnects on the board with a resistive film. That film can be nickel

phosphide plated on a board layer, carbon-loaded epoxy that is screen printed,

tantalum nitride that is sputtered, or a ceramic-metal nanocomposite that is

printed. There are other possibilities; those are just the most cost-effective

options for making boardswith a high density of resistors.

For capacitors, the main challenge is finding materials that can be

deposited using techniques that are compatible with the materials and processes

used on the rest of the board. For example, barium titanate, though common in

conventional capacitors, is not an ideal choice because to reach its proper

dielectric value—which indicates its ability to concentrate an electric field—it

must be fired at a blistering 600 °C, which no polymer board could withstand.

However, researchers have found a way to integrate even these high

temperature dielectrics. They can first be fired on a foil of copper, which is then

processed and laminated inside the board. To guarantee that integrated passives

will make circuit boards smaller, the material's dielectric properties must be such

that it takes only a small area of a layer of the circuit board to make up a

capacitor.

The average value of cellphone capacitors is typically 1 to 10 nanofarads

and there can be hundreds of capacitors in each board; a manufacturer would

have to pack hundreds or even thousands of nanofarads of capacitance into the

board. For contrast, most current products for making integrated capacitors are

limited to polymer-based low-capacitance density materials good for only about

5 nF/cm2. A new company, Xanodics is commercializing a capacitor process,

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called Stealth, that is based on tantalum (common in cellphone capacitors).. We

anodize it at room temperature to create tantalum pentoxide in a solution that is

benign to the board and its copper conductors. This forms devices with

capacitance to be sure that the integration would reduce the board's size. DuPont

and others are developing processes that should yield over 100 nF/cm 2, a value

good enough to replace many of a cellphone's surface-mounted capacitors with

integrated ones.

And researchers are confident that they will soon achieve values over 1

µF/cm2, allowing integration into even smaller areas per unit area higher than

200 nF/cm2. So a great many capacitors can be integrated onto the same board

layer. In addition, the process makes particularly thin capacitors, 0.1 to 0.2 µm

thick. This slender profile cuts own on the capacitors' parasitic inductance, and

that makes them handle high frequencies better.

Size matters

Integrating passives can drastically reduce the size of an ordinary circuit

board [top]. Here, four capacitors and six resistors have been removed from the

surface and put into an extra layer of circuit board [bottom]. Resistors are copper

connection points bridged by a resistive film, and capacitors are conductive

plates separated by a thin film of dielectric material.

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After the board is laminated, holes are drilled and plated to form vias that

connect the integrated components to other board wiring. An integrated one can

replace not every value of passive; two remain on the surface. Some commercial

processes would require separate capacitor and resistor layers.

In contrast to capacitors, integrated inductors are a snap to fabricate. They

are nothing but spirals of interconnect metal. The challenge is not in the

materials or process technology but in their design. The main problem is that any

nearby metallic structures, such as interconnects or other inductors, will interfere

with their magnetic fields and change their performance. The dielectric material

is FR4 and the conductor material is Aluminium. At low frequency, the reactive

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inductance is smaller than the series resistance, therefore, the resistance

dominates the impedence. The resonant frequency is determined by the parasitic

capacitance of the inductors.

Inductors are angled away from each other to avoid crosstalk in this low-

pass filter that fits between the layers of a circuit board. Designed by one of the

authors, and built by Integral Wave Technologies for NASA's Langley Research

Center, the thickest part of this filter is less than 6 µm. Capacitors are made from

a thin-film oxide, inductors from copper.

A Very Flat Filter

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The blem of infrastructure is the usual chicken-and-egg story. When

plotted against time, technology adoption typically takes the form of an S curve,

meaning prothat little happens at first but eventually everyone gets on board.We

are at the bottom of the curve now, but there is evidence that adoption is

increasing. About a dozen products for integrating capacitors are on the market

now, which is double the number a year ago. Still, board manufacturers may be

squeamish until there are enough vendors in the business to guarantee a second

source for their materials and processes should their first choice fail.

The other inhibitors are:

• Need to demonstrate the technical viability of integral

substrates,including materials,processes,design and test system.

• Need to demonstrate the value or economic justification for

substituting discrete capacitor and resistors with integral

technology.

• Potential delay to the product development cycle. These passives

are usually designed in the final stages of a product.The economic

impact of a product delay could easily out way any cost saving in

size reduction or conversion costs.

• Integral passives reduce engineering and manufacturing

flexibility.The ability to apply engineering changes to an integral

substrate without delaying the schedule is critical.

• Qualification-most of the processes, materials, vendors and

products in this space are not qualified.

• Lack of availability from multiple suppliers.

• Industry standards are required to capture the true market potential

for this technology.

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DECOUPLING

Decoupling may be considered as a killer application of integrated

passives. Decoupling is used in high-frequency digital logic circuits, such as in

the motherboards of laptop computers. These circuits place severe demands on

power-distribution systems to supply stable, noise-free power during the clock-

driven simultaneous switching of millions of transistor gates.

Decoupling capacitors help supply these large current surges, ramping asfast as 500 A/ns, to high-power microprocessor and logic ICs during the

switching portions of clock cycles. This technique ensures that the logic voltage

levels do not drop unacceptably as a result of the high current demands on the

power supply, which may be many centimeters away and connected by

unavoidably resistive and inductive conductor planes.Between cycles of current

demand, the power-distribution system recharges these capacitors in preparation

for the next switching cycle. With ever-increasing clock speeds, decreasing

power supply voltage, and increasing current demand, designers are finding it

harder and harder to supply low-impedance, noise-free power to ICs. The main

problem is that decoupling capacitors can't deliver charge quickly, because of

their intrinsic inductance.

Decoupling is an obvious first application for integrated capacitors for

two reasons: they won't take up valuable real estate near the power-hungry

microprocessor, and their electrical performance is superior in this application

by virtue of their extremely low parasitic inductance. Especially on digital

circuit boards, surface-mounted capacitors surround the big ICs, often on both

sides of the board. Since the speed of the system is often limited by memory

access times, eliminating the capacitors from the surface and moving memory

closer to the microprocessors would result in a smaller and faster system.

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Though special discrete capacitors are being built with fairly low

inductance, none of them can compare with an integrated parallel-plate capacitor

using a thin dielectric located between the power and ground planes (conductor

coated layers of the board dedicated to either the ground or power supply). For

example, thin-film devices that we built on flex at the University of Arkansas

(Fayetteville) and Xanodics deliver several hundred nanofarads with less than 3

picohenrys of inductance and a trifling 10 milliohms of resistance. In

comparison, a typical surface-mounted capacitor would have several hundred

picohenrys of inductance. Integrated decoupling will likely first appear not in the

circuit board itself, but in the small piece of substrate included in the so called

ball-grid-array packaging of high-performance microprocessors.Putting the

capacitance layer within the package avoids the intervening inductance of the

package-to-board connection.

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THE INTERMEDIATE STEP

Before true integrated passives take hold, widespread use of passive

arrays can be seen, in which multiple similar components (capacitors, say) are

formed on the surface of a substrate and packaged into a single surface mounted

device like an IC. We'll also see more passive networks, which combine

different kinds of passives in one package. These networks include devices

internally connected to form simple circuits such as filters, terminators, or

voltage dividers. In either case, one mounting operation replaces many and the

overall footprint of the circuit is much smaller. These arrays and networks are a

middle ground—not fully discrete but not fully integrated within a circuit board.

They bring some of the advantages of full integration such as a reduced number

of placement operations, fewer solder joints, and less board space. Many

configurations of arrays and networks are now available in quantity from

California Micro Devices, AVX, and other companies, and custom arrangements

are also possible. Devices from these companies are typically fabricated on a

silicon or other substrate using tried-and-true chip-making processes so the

yields are high and the prices reasonable.

The technique raises some interesting possibilities. If ICs or other active

devices are mounted atop a passive network, they may form so-called functional

modules, such as Bluetooth or GPS subsystems. For example, a GPS module

would include passives and antennas integrated on a substrate and one or more

ICs bound to it, all in a single chip-scale package. The manufacturer would not

have to worry about learning to design and manufacture GPS systems and could

also easily upgrade or switch vendors.

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FUTURE SCOPE

Less than 5 percent of the trillion-plus passive devices mounted on FR4

and flex boards this year will be surface-mounted passive arrays and passive

networks, and hardly any passives will be fully integrated into the circuit board.

The circuit board business, in the United States, at least, is largely a

contract industry, with much of it removed from the designers of circuits and

equipment makers. This gulf makes board makers a bit conservative and slow to

change relative to, say, the chip industry, where all aspects of development,

design, and manufacture are often in the same company. Still, integrated resistor

and capacitor layers are starting to become available from reputable suppliers

and a few consumer products are showing up with at least some of the passives

integrated, and these should lead the way for significant market penetration in

the near future. It is hard to say when, if ever, will more than half the passives be

integrated. The microelectronics industry is full of cautionary tales. But some

new manufacturing technologies do prove their economic viability and become

industry standards, such as surface mounting.

Whether or not passive integration becomes an industry standard will

depend on its economic viability. Certainly, it is viable for decoupling and, in

fact, may be the only way to handle the future generations of high-power, high-

frequency microprocessors. For discrete replacement in general, though, the best

processes and materials are still being identified. If we find suitable

technologies, then passive integration will probably show a long, steady climb in

use the way surface mounting supplanted through-hole mounting in the 1980s.

As the infrastructure, supply chain, and industry acceptance grow

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simultaneously, eventually integration will gain some significant fraction of the

total market and put passives in their place: hidden, ubiquitous, and cheap.

CONCLUSION

The need for increased product miniaturization and increased product

function will eventually drive the electronic product to increase their use of

integral passive components.Embedded passives offer increased component

density beyond the physical capability of discrete-like devices.They also offer

high product reliability and eventually lower overall system costs via decreased

conversion costs.

Although severely lagging behind developments in active components,

passive component integration is allowing the development of an assortment of

new product offerings. Some of these items have been possible for several years,

but lack of widespread customer acceptance and high costs have slowed their

introduction into the general marketplace. Some items are yet to be developed.

For example, because several manufacturers can perform both thick- and thin-

film manufacturing, hybrid components combining both technologies may be

forthcoming. Passive component integration is and will continue to be an

important contribution in the development of increasingly smaller medical

electronics.

Resistors, inductors, and capacitors are disappearing from view,

integrated into the circuit board itself. Passive integration may be the only way

to handle the future generations of high-power, high-frequency microprocessors.

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REFERENCES

Books:

1. IEEE SPECTRUM Journal,July 2003

2. Integrated Passive Component technology-IEEE/WILEY Press

3. IMAPS Advanced Packaging Materials Processes, March 2001

Websites:

1. www.spectrum.ieee.org

2. www.identrus.com/Baltimore.pdf

3. http:/www.pemuk.com

4. www.ewh.ieee.org/mm/cpmt/kim00/emps.pdf

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Passive Integration Seminar Report ’03

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. NEED FOR PASSIVE INTEGRATION

3. COMPARISON BETWEEN EMBEDDED

AND DISCRETE PASSIVES

4. INTEGRATED PASSIVE TECHNOLOGY

5. BARRIERS TO PASSIVE INTEGRATION

6. DECOUPLING

7. THE INTERMEDIATE STEP

8. FUTURE SCOPE

9. CONCLUSION

10. REFERENCES

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ABSTRACT

Miniaturization has been a key contributor to advances in electronic

technology. Many electronics applications have serious space considerations that

are pressuring manufacturers to reduce component size. Much of the motivation

for this Certainly, miniaturization has been made possible mostly through

remarkable breakthroughs in reducing the size of active components. But as

integrated circuits get smaller and more complex, there is an increasing need to

also reduce the space required for the supporting passive components.

Passive integration suggests that if the passives were so small and flat,

then they could be inserted between layers of the circuit board itself, rather than

taking space on top of it. The integrated passives would be a part of the circuit

board itself, formed when the board was, so odds are good that their overall cost

could eventually be less than what manufacturers pay today to buy and solder on

discrete devices. Advantages of this technology point to a potentially huge shift

for the electronics industry. Passive component integration is and will continue

to be an important contribution in the development of electronic technology.

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