This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II research project deals with the ever-increasing burden placed on the microelectronics industry as computational speeds increase. While the number-density-speed of transistors doubles every 18-24 months (a phenomenon known as Moore's Law), the ability to retrieve and store data from external sources is not increasing nearly as quickly. The performance improvement rate of key computing tasks such as simulation, signal processing and database searches is becoming limited by off-chip bandwidth. Approaches such as "flip-chip bumping" are not a panacea, because despite their small size, these structures leak signals to one another; a significant performance detriment. The company has developed a novel MicroCoax interconnect technology to address these problems, utilizing existing semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure. The research objectives are to gain insights into MicroCoax fundamentals and understand application specific issues within market segments that are most impacted by current technological limitations. Research will focus on continuing exploration of MicroCoax material set, process flow, integration, and reliability, along with specific application to three distinct market spaces namely, MMICs, High-speed Digital/Optoelectronics, and high-frequency test.
Electronics technology impacts nearly every person on earth in some way. Even folks living in remote places are subject to natural disasters, which may be predicted by atmospheric and geological simulation and warning systems, allowing timely evacuation. Goods distribution and logistics are increasingly dependent on computationally intensive database search and tracking. Medical diagnosis and treatment rely increasingly on signal processing for imaging and therapeutics. High-bandwidth wireless systems allow for recovery of communication infrastructure following floods and hurricanes. All of the aforementioned technologies have high-speed electronic systems at their core, and MicroCoax can affect them all. High-bandwidth systems are quite expensive today, in large part because of interconnects based on machined waveguides and significant labor content associated with such approaches. If successful the proposed technology, MicroCoax, can eliminate much of the cost, making such systems more commercially viable and ubiquitous. While a disruptive technology such as MicroCoax will be invisible to the average user, electronics designers and will be able to expand their application horizons due to elimination of prohibitive cost constraints. Electronics, semiconductor, communications and related industries will stall without continued innovation in packaging and interconnect strategies. The economic implications are significant, as worldwide electronics sales number somewhere around US$1.3 trillion at this time.
