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A significant consideration to be made with respect to the application of a flexible circuit is the degree to which it can be bent when incorporated into the next level of assembly. The application of stress analysis techniques to arrive at a flexible circuit design that will be structurally sound for a given set of parameters and materials relative to the required application is discussed.

To evaluate the significance of integrated circuits in television receivers, the 4.5-MHz intercarrier sound channel was integrated on amonolithic silicon chip. Use of this chip in production monochrome and color television receivers has resulted in improved performance, greater reliability, and potentially lower cost. From the experience gained in this project, it is estimated that some 20% of the chassis component cost of a television receiver is susceptible to economically-sound use of integrated circuits. It appears that the television circuit-design engineer is best equipped to take the initiative in the design of integrated circuits because of the complexity of the integrated circuit-receiver interface. Considerations in the specification and testing of integrated circuits are described.

This paper describes the procedures employed in the development of the custom integrated circuit complement utilized in the Improved MINUTEMAN computer. Two representative circuit types are presented with detailed design considerations and resultant decisions, thereby illustrating the necessity for a tightly-knit combined-operations concept in the custom design of semiconductor integrated circuits. Conclusions are drawn relative to the efficacy of the procedures used, and recommendations for corrective action are presented.

(1968). Machining Methods for Printed Circuit Boards. Transactions of the IMF: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 125-130.

A recent development program consisted of the design and fabrication of integrated circuits for use in a broad class of AM/FM receivers. Various circuit designs were considered and a partitioning scheme was evolved utilizing three integrated circuits. Here the integrated circuits are described and performance data on a receiver are presented. Conclusions are drawn as to the proposed future work in this area.

Circuit designers have frequently treated system design as a separate discipline. The development of integrated circuits has drawn many circuit engineers even further away from system considerations as they concentrate on intricate device parameters. This paper discusses the mutual constraints of system and circuit design which actually require even greater attention if integrated circuits are to be employed. Emphasis is placed on compromises the circuit designer must consider at the circuit level to achieve an optimum system. In addition, the effect of his decisions on procurement, test, repair, and support expenditures are discussed. A summary of the related systems and circuit specifications for a large scale digital computer using integrated circuits is presented. The selection and specification of the desired circuits was developed with particular emphasis on the system considerations discussed herein.

The keynote speaker at the recent International Solid State Circuits Conference implements the basic theme of the conference by presenting an overview of the success achieved in the field of integrated electronics ?and the problems remaining to be solved. He concentrates on three areas?digital, microwave, and consumer applications?because these best illustrate the successful implementation of the technology in the first case, and its possibilities, and problems, in the others.

Rapid progress made in integrated circuit production daring the past two years has resulted in improved reliability at lower cost for high-volume standard circuits. However, gains made at the device and circuit level can sometimes be offset at the system level, particularly if the normal range of components is not available. This paper considers some of the system tradeoffs involved in standardization vs optimization of circuits and illustrates some of the penalties paid when capacitors, inductors and transformers are not available in integrated structures. Unconventional system organizations may sometimes be used to overcome the problems of limited component availability. An illustration is given of the design of a multiplex system based upon spread spectrum techniques in order to utilize more fully the advantages of integrated circuits.

The meanings of the words microcircuits, molecular electronics, integrated circuits, and functional devices are examined with the conclusions that, as generally used, the only sensible definitions are as follows: a microcircuit is one in which connections are made between circuit elements on a microscopic scale. Molecular electronics, integrated circuits, and functional devices all have essentially the same meaning, which is that connections are made between circuit elements inside a single block of material without bringing leads out. The next order of miniaturization that is required for space vehicles and large-scale computers will use a microeletronic or molecular electronic technology in combination with conventional miniature techniques. The feasibility of very large components of systems being made by a molecular or microelectronic technique depends on the combination of many orders of magnitude reduction in manufacturing shrinkage combined with the design of circuits to tolerate unreliable or defective elements.

Integrated Circuit technology is reviewed by a survey of the characteristics of components available for both monolithic and hybrid construction. The component survey results in a list of guide lines to be used in designing linear integrated circuits; the guide lines are then employed to design a 60 mc IF amplifier.

The complexity of integrated circuits has increased steadily over the past several years from circuits consisting of simple gates through Medium Scale Integration (MSI) and Large Scale Integration (LSI). Fabrication techniques for LSI have evolved from well-established integrated circuit technology. Because of the large physical size and the large number of components on the individual silicon die, production techniques have been substantially improved in order to maintain reasonable yields. However, the most significant effects of LSI on the semiconductor manufacturer are in the areas of design and testing; techniques used in the past for simpler integrated circuits are inadequate for LSI.

The use of computers in the printed circuit industry is discussed in relation to improving productivity and quality of work. Computers can be particularly useful in artwork production and in providing tapes for drilling machines, component inserting machines, etc.

A comprehensive integrated circuit (IC) engineering curriculum is presented. The motivation for this curriculum and its implementation at Purdue University are discussed. The emphasis of the paper concerns two IC laboratory courses.

Several reasons for teaching integrated circuits from both a theoretical and a fabrication technology viewpoint are outlined. To illustrate a method whereby the goals of the student, university, and industry have been achieved, two theory and two laboratory courses have been developed and are described.

A multinet wiring problem is proposed. This problem has application in the routing of interconnection wires on integrated circuit chips and printed circuit boards. Optimal and suboptimal algorithms, based on the branch-and-bound method, are described for its solution.

An initial printed circuit board design must be developed upon sound principles, which take into account manufacturability, test, installation, and serviceability.

Application Specific Integrated Circuits are becoming an increasingly important class of devices for many semiconductor manufacturers. These circuits often contain highly optimized digital architectures as well as analog circuitry for interfacing to sensors, transducers and actuators. In order to reduce the design time of these circuits high level software tools are being developed. A discussion is given of the requirements of a process technology, which is compatible with this type of design methodology.

Integrated solid-state circuits have gained much ground since they were first introduced. This gain has come about in at least three distinct fashions: 1) Standard (sometimes even off the shelf) low-or medium-scale integrated circuits enter electronic equipment in much the same way as the discrete components in earlier designs; 2)Programmable integrated circuit chips are one successful answer to the problem of regaining flexibility in the case of logic circuits. The microprocessor is the main example of this type of integrated circuit; and 3)the other answer to the same problem is the customer designed IC (CDIC).

The design and fabrication of a test mask suitable for the experimental evaluation of automated integrated circuit photomask inspection systems is described. This mask contains various types and sizes of intentional defects in known locations. The defects are superimposed on a background of images consisting of a typical integrated circuit pattern.

Various electrical alignment test structures were designed to conform to the NBS 2 × N probe pad array and are thus compatible with a class of other modular test structures. The object of this study is to determine the feasibility of this new layout, to compare results with visual alignment test structures, and to establish the limits of resolution. The structures can be used to determine the misalignment of two photomask steps and are applicable to two conducting layers that contact each other at a contact window. The electrical data are displayed as wafer vector maps which are useful in quantifying mask alignment problems.

The printed circuit board is an integral part of the electronic packaging hierarchy. Its use began more than 40 years ago, and the demand for printed circuit boards has increased in parallel with the growth of the electronics industry.[1] According to a recent forecast, the worldwide production of printed circuit boards will reach to over 19 billion U.S. dollars' worth by 1990.[2] With continuing demands for more interconnections, the multilayer circuit board industry is experiencing its fastest growth rate. Boards with more than 20 inner planes of circuitry are being manufactured with high reliability.Based on dollar values, more than 90% of the circuit boards produced are in the rigid board category, where starting materials are based on thermosetting prepregs produced by a solution impregnation method. This article is a review of materials currently used in rigid composites.

A method based on a specific implantation associated with an effort of standardization allows to greatly simplify C-MOS integrated circuit design and checking. In spite of a drastic reduction in the number of the different elementary constituents used, realized circuits exhibit excellent characteristics without prohibitive increase of the chip area.

A comprehensive system of compute programs which take raw logic diagrams or equations through design to printed circuit board artwork.

Today, on the threshold of an era of automatic placement and routing, a good many printed circuit boards are still manually designed. For these boards the process of checking the connectivity of the printed circuit artwork and the component layout against the engineering schematic is a time consuming and arduous task. In addition, the tedious repetition of this checking job makes it highly error prone. Thus, this task would seem to be an ideal prospect for automation.At Hughes Aircraft Company a computer program has been implemented to aid in checking printed circuit artwork. The first task encountered was to devise a method of reducing the artwork and the schematic to coded numerical data specifying their respective connective properties. Next it was necessary to implement an algorithm for comparing the two sets of data. It was also thought important to give consideration to user features and the nature of the man-machine interface.

This report describes the first set of proprietary design automation programs that will become available for licensing from C-E-I-R in 1968. The system (called DAPSY V. 2) is a group of building block programs that automate the layout and design of printed circuit boards using integrated circuit (IC) packs. The programs perform three basic functions: the logic is partitioned into IC packs, the packs are placed on the board, and the inter-connections are routed.

A design automation system which accepts engineering data in the form of logic diagrams is described. The output is in the form of paper tape to directly create photomasks and/or drilled boards. The key feature of this approach is a highly sophisticated routing subsystem.

This paper describes an interactive system for the design of printed circuit boards. The system uses an interactive graphics terminal for solving the placement and routing problems. It can be used for designing two-layer boards with integrated circuit modules and discrete components. A substantial portion of the wire-routing is performed automatically and the remaining wires are routed manually in a single interactive session. The system provides significant savings in both design time and processing costs over batch processing and manual methods.

This paper describes a computer system which integrates three types of numerical control machines in the production of artwork drawings and drill tapes for multi-layer printed circuit boards.

IBM is committed to computer assistance in the design, manufacture and test of printed circuit boards. As a result of the company's worldwide organisation, it is impossible to share databases between development and manufacturing systems. However, the use of formal data interfaces enables the integration of the separate processes of design, manufacture and test into what is effectively a single CADMAT system.

Topological methods of designing printed and integrated circuits have recently been the subject of much interest. A new algorithm is now presented for the construction of the graph of a circuit. Not only does this algorithm produce simpler graphs than it was possible to produce by the use of earlier methods, but it also retains much of the freedom normally associated with manual routing. Using this algorithm, conductors can be rerouted automatically if they lie in the path of another conductor, and certain options are left open as long as possible to minimise the probability of failure. There is no restriction on routing conductors among the terminals of a component. The experience gained with the algorithm so far is encouraging.