Product category:
Electronics Manufacturing Services
News Release from: Endicott Interconnect Technologies | Subject: PCBs
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 22 January 2008
Complex controller board stretches
expertise
Board is a core component in the Osmosis research project on next-generation optical switch technology in high-performance computing systems.
Endicott Interconnect Technologies (EI) has upped the ante on its capabilities for fabricating large, high-complexity PC boards with an award winning controller board that functions as the intelligence of the world's most powerful and advanced optical packet switch The board fabricated by EI is a controller board for a 64 x 64-port high-performance optical switch designed by IBM Zurich Research Lab
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 7 Sep 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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This is one of the most complex designs ever developed and is a core component in the Osmosis (optical shared memory supercomputer interconnect system) research project on next-generation optical switch technology in high-performance computing systems.
Sponsored by the US Department of Energy and in co-operation with Corning, IBM's computer scientists developed a method of using optical switch elements to transfer packet data throughout the system using light.
This switch is capable of transmitting 2.5Tbit of data - equivalent to 20 high definition movies - in only 1 second.
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IBM researchers implemented this complex architecture for a 64-port optical switch technology demonstrator, achieving line rates of 40Gbit/s.
"The board construction consisted of 36 layers, 36,053 blind vias, 29,246 connections, a total trace length of 1.6 miles, and required multiple passes through the plating and drilling processes, highlighting the criticality of registration", says James Fuller, EI's VP of Semiconductor Packaging and Printed Circuit Board Fabrication.
"The biggest hurdle was accommodating 40 back-to-back two-sided compliant-pin connections".
The board was fabricated as two subcomposites with deep blind vias that, once joined, went only half way through the full thickness of the board.
EI's engineering team provided the necessary depth control for the pin connections by developing a unique process that filled the vias to preserve the holes during lamination and then mechanically drilled the holes afterward.
"This opportunity has been among the most challenging board applications EI has undertaken since its inception", says James McNamara, President and CEO at EI.
"The engineering expertise and manufacturing execution required to satisfactorily build this board is rare in the industry".
"Collaboration between our engineering, manufacturing and R and D teams was invaluable in solving an exceedingly complex fabrication puzzle and consequently delivering a leading-edge high-performance solution".
The controller board design won a 19th Annual PCB Technology Leadership Award, a competition attracting printed circuit board designers from around the world, in the telecommunications switches, network servers, basestations and computer mainframes category.
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