Tracks: 2018FLEX Full Conference, IC/Hybrid Integration, Integration, Sensors & Sensor Networks
The pace of the increase in transistor counts for one processor unit generally described by Moore’s law holds on until today. However the growing complexity raises challenges on the energy supply, thermal management and reliability of these components. Aspects which are not only influenced by the processor architecture itself but by the technologies dealing with the packaging and the electrical interconnection with further peripheral units as well. Since these technologies do not scale by Moore’s law, they are often described by the term “More than Moore”. In order to address the above challenges System-in-Package (SiP) concepts are being developed integrating several electric components in a single unit. These new approaches help to fabricate compact circuits with enhanced features such as integrated user interfaces, sensors and actuators. Within Corporate Research of Bosch concepts to embed and interconnect various electric components in a flexible circuit carrier have been developed in strong cooperation with European research institutes. Since many processes were already established in the CE field, extensive studies have been performed to investigate the suitability of such integration technologies for the automotive and the industrial sector. The studies have been focusing on reliability issues of the packaging and the electrical interconnections under cyclic thermo-mechanical loading. Besides the integration of conventional electrical components new transducer technologies especially suitable for flexible packaging have been treated as well. Current research activities are focusing on technologies integrating sensor components such as projected capacitive and resistive touch sensors with transparent, electroactive polymer-based haptic transducers in one package together with the display unit.