Research Consortium Touts #AirGap for PC Boards

Air-gaps are the ultimate insulator and have been applied to advanced semiconductor chips from IBM and Panasonic, but now the Semiconductor Research Corp. claims to have adapted the technique for use with printed circuit boards. Look for air-gaps developed at SRC member Georgia Tech in a new breed of ultra-low capacitance PCB interconnects within three years. RColinJohnson @NextGenLog


Sacrificial organic polycarbonate (grey) is patterned using traditional photolithography atop the copper wires (orange), then evaporated away after the PC boards assembly (bottom).

The holy grail of low-k dielectrics—air-gap interconnections—will migrate from chip-level to board-level, according to the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC), a technology research consortium based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Ultra-low capacitance air-gaps on printed circuit boards—along with new solder-less copper connections—will allow higher frequency operation while simultaneously lowering power requirements, according to SRC's Focus Center research program and the Georgia Institute of Technology...Now any SRC member has access to air-gaps...including #AMD, #IBM, #Intel, Texas Instruments (#TI), #Freescale and Global Foundries...
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