This application claims the priority benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2004-11779, filed on Feb. 23, 2004, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printed circuit board (PCB), and more particularly, to a multi-layer circuit board structure and a method of fabricating the same.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Generally, multi-layer circuit boards are widely used in electronic systems such as personal computers, or the like. The multi-layer circuit boards provide advantages over single-layer circuit boards. For example, the advantages include increased efficiency in the usage of space, and a reduction in overall physical size. The multi-layer circuit board has an electronic circuit element such as a microprocessor, a capacitor or the like, as well as a semiconductor memory device such as a DRAM or the like mounted thereon, so as to provide a multi-chip module.
The heat generated from such a multi-layer circuit board has increased due to trends of higher speeds and higher capacitances of the electronic system. If the heat generated from the multi-layer circuit board cannot be rapidly dissipated, the temperature of the electronic components may increase. With a sufficient rise in temperature there may be an operational failure, or the performance of the system may deteriorate. Previously a heat diffuser or a heat spreader or the like was installed on the conventional multi-layer circuit board to facilitate diffusion and dissipation of heat. However, the use of these heat diffusers in connection with the multi-layer circuit board used considerable space. The heat diffusers reduced the space available for placement of components and also limited space for signal routing.
The heat generated from the conventional multi-layer circuit board and problems caused by the installation of the heat diffuser or spreader are explained below in more detail with reference to the drawings.
First,
The multi-layer circuit board 10 shown in
The thicknesses of the inner layers of
In the case of a ten-layered stack structure as shown in
In Japanese Laid Open Publication No. 2001-53421, there is disclosed a smoothing printed substrate in which a small current signal circuit and a large current signal circuit are integrated to facilitate compactness, high reliability, and low price of the resultant device. However, the structure does not optimize heat diffusion performance for the substrate in formation of a multi-chip module because conductive layers have steps in the height. The thickness of one layer is substantially equal to the thickness of other like layers.
With the structures shown in
The present invention is directed to provide a multi-layer circuit board structure and a method of fabricating the same. Embodiments of the present invention substantially obviate one or more problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of some embodiments of the present invention is to provide a multi-layer circuit board structure for minimizing or reducing the size of an external heat diffuser.
Still another object of some embodiments of the present invention is to provide a multi-layer circuit board structure, in which its heat spreading performance is significantly improved compared with a conventional one.
Further embodiments of the present invention provide a multi-layer circuit board structure and a method of fabricating the same for effectively realizing heat spreading without an installation of an external heat spreader.
Further, some embodiments of the present invention provide an improved structure of a multi-layer circuit board and a method of fabricating the same for maximizing or improving a heat diffusion efficiency without the addition of an extra or external heat spreading layer.
Some exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide a multi-layer circuit board structure configured such that insulating layers and interconnection conductive layers are alternately stacked, in which among the interconnection conductive layers, inner interconnection conductive layers, which are disposed under an outer interconnection conductive layer having a main surface on which circuit elements are capable of being mounted, have different thicknesses.
In further embodiments of the multi-layer circuit board structure, the insulating layers may be composed of prepreg layers, and the interconnection conductive layers may be composed of copper layers. Further, the inner interconnection conductive layers may comprise power conductive layers and signal routing conductive layers, and preferably, the thickness of the conductive layer is greater than that of the signal routing conductive layer. In some embodiments of the multi-layer circuit board structures the inner insulating layers may be of varying thicknesses to improve heat diffusion.
In other embodiments the thickness of the signal routing conduction layer is greater than that of a power conduction layer. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment, the present invention provides a method of fabricating a multi-layer circuit board configured such that insulating layers and interconnection conductive layers are alternately stacked, in which some of the inner interconnection conductive layers between the outer layers are formed thicker than those of the rest of the inner interconnection conductive layers, thereby improving the heat diffusing performance of the multi-layer circuit board.
According to some embodiments of the invention, a multi-layer circuit board structure and a method of fabricating the same, the heat spreading performance is significantly improved compared with a conventional structure, thereby providing advantages of minimizing or reducing sizes of an external heat diffuser, or omitting the installation of an external heat diffuser.
The above and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art by describing in detail preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings in which:
The present invention now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which embodiments of the invention are shown. However, this invention should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. In the drawings, the thickness of layers and regions are exaggerated for clarity. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. As used herein the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
It will be understood that when an element such as a layer, region or substrate is referred to as being “on” or extending “onto” another element, it can be directly on or extend directly onto the other element or intervening elements may also be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly on” or extending “directly onto” another element, there are no intervening elements present. It will also be understood that when an element is referred to as being “connected” or “coupled” to another element, it can be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly connected” or “directly coupled” to another element, there are no intervening elements present.
It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections, these elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element, component, region, layer or section from another region, layer or section. Thus, a first element, component, region, layer or section discussed below could be termed a second element, component, region, layer or section without departing from the teachings of the present invention.
Furthermore, relative terms, such as “lower” or “bottom” and “upper” or “top,” may be used herein to describe one element's relationship to another elements as illustrated in the Figures. It will be understood that relative terms are intended to encompass different orientations of the device in addition to the orientation depicted in the Figures. For example, if the device in the Figures is turned over, elements described as being on the “lower” side of other elements would then be oriented on “upper” sides of the other elements. The exemplary term “lower”, can therefore, encompasses both an orientation of “lower” and “upper,” depending of the particular orientation of the figure. Similarly, if the device in one of the figures is turned over, elements described as “below” or “beneath” other elements would then be oriented “above” the other elements. The exemplary terms “below” or “beneath” can, therefore, encompass both an orientation of above and below.
Embodiments of the present invention are described herein with reference to cross-section (and/or plan view) illustrations that are schematic illustrations of idealized embodiments of the present invention. As such, variations from the shapes of the illustrations as a result, for example, of manufacturing techniques and/or tolerances, are to be expected. Thus, embodiments of the present invention should not be construed as limited to the particular shapes of regions illustrated herein but are to include deviations in shapes that result, for example, from manufacturing. For example, an etched region illustrated or described as a rectangle will, typically, have rounded or curved features. Thus, the regions illustrated in the figures are schematic in nature and their shapes are not intended to illustrate the precise shape of a region of a device and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.
Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein. It will also be appreciated by those of skill in the art that references to a structure or feature that is disposed “adjacent” another feature may have portions that overlap or underlie the adjacent feature.
As used herein the term “conductive” or “conducting” refers to elements (such as a conductive layer in a multi-layer circuit board) where an impedance associated therewith is substantially given by the relationship of Impedance=V/I, where V is a voltage across the element and I is the current, at substantially all expected operating frequencies (i.e., the impedance associated with the element is substantially the same at all operating frequencies).
During design of the PCB, the total number of layers is determined. The number of layers is predetermined by the nature of the use of or purpose of the PCB. In one embodiment of the invention, the designer may use that predetermined number of layers and utilize other aspects of the invention. For example, should space constraints allow, the designer may increase the relative thickness of certain layers compared to other layers while maintaining the predetermined number of layers.
In n layers (n is a natural number greater than 2) of the multi-layer circuit board as shown in
Inner conductive layers 102b, 103b, 104b, 105b, 106b, 107b may be inner power conductive layers and/or an inner signal routing conductive layers. The inner power conductive layers are disposed between the top interconnection conductive layer 101b and the bottom interconnection conductive layer 108b with some of insulating layers 201b˜207b interleaved between them. That is, the inner power conductive layer 102b is disposed over the inner signal routing conductive layer 103b with the insulating layer 202b interposed between them, and the inner power conductive layer 107b is disposed under the inner signal routing conductive layer 106b with the insulating layer 206b interposed between them. In this example, the multi-layer circuit board has a symmetric structure about the insulating layer 204b. In one embodiment, among the eight conductive layers L1˜L8, the conductive layers except the conductive layers L2, L7 may be composed of copper laminating layers having a thickness of about 18 μm, and the conductive layers L2, L7 may be composed of copper laminating layers having a thickness of about 52 to 108 μm.
Further, in the example of the ten-layered stack structure shown in
As described above, the fabrication of a multi-layer circuit board as described above can be performed using the conventional method disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,395,329. The thickness of the power conductive layer is preferably formed up to 6 times thicker than the thickness of the signal routing conductive layer, for heat diffusion purposes.
While the electrically conductive layers are sometimes illustrated by reference to copper, other materials may be used including aluminum and suicides such as tungsten silicide.
As a result, it can be concluded that the thermal conductivity can be improved if one or more of the power layers is (are) formed thicker than the signal routing layer. As such, by changes of the thickness of the inner layers without the modification of the multi-layer nature of the circuit board structure, or in some cases the signal routing layer(s), the heat generated from the electronic parts mounted on the multi-layer circuit board can be effectively dissipated.
According to the present invention as described above, the heat diffusion performance of a multi-layer circuit board can be considerably improved in comparison with a conventional circuit board structure. Therefore, the present invention provides advantages including minimizing or reducing sizes of heat diffusion parts separate from the layers of the circuit board of a multi chip module. Further, the present invention can be structured without mounting of a heat diffuser separate from or external to the layers of the circuit board.
While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof and by referring to drawings, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims. For example, the number of the inner layers, and the position of the relatively thick inner layer can be modified in various forms without departing from the spirit of the present invention. Likewise the relatively thicker layers may be the signal routing layers rather than the power conductive layers. Further, in the case that a heat diffuser is installed, it can be significantly reduced in size, or the installation of the heat spreader can be omitted. Further, a multi-layer circuit board of a multi chip module was illustrated in the embodiment, but the present invention can be also employed in a printed circuit board.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10-2004-0011779 | Feb 2004 | KR | national |