Patent Application
20080003843
The following detailed description references the accompanying drawings. Like numerals describe substantially similar components throughout each of the drawings. Other embodiments may be used, and structural, logical, and electrical changes made. The socket assemblies and electronic assemblies described herein can be manufactured, used, or shipped in a number of positions and orientations.
In some embodiments, the socket assemblies and the electronic assemblies described herein provide a current path for supplying power and/or I/O signals to a processor. The socket assembly and the electronic assembly include a contact structure that improves the differential high speed performance of a processor.
The differential high-speed performance of the processor is enhanced by positioning the contacts to reduce the capacitive coupling between the edges of adjacent differential pairs of contacts. The contact structure also allows the socket assembly and the electronic assembly to be fabricated utilizing standard manufacturing and assembly processes.
The reduced capacitive coupling between the edges of adjacent differential contact pairs helps to maintain a differential impedance level for a reduced-pitch socket that is similar to non-reduced pitch sockets. Therefore, the contact structure serves to minimize system-level impedance mismatches and maintains high speed performance.
In addition, each of the contacts 20 is adjacent to another contact 20 such that each of the contacts 20 is part of a differential pair of contacts (formed of a contact 21A and a contact 22B). As an example, one of the contacts 22A in each differential pair 22A of contacts 20 is oriented in one direction A while the other contact 22B in each differential pair of contacts 20 are oriented in an opposing direction B such that the first side 24 of each contact 22A faces in an opposite direction B to the first side 24 of each contact 22B.
Arranging each of the contacts 20 in each differential pair of contacts 22A, 22B in this manner reduces the capacitive coupling between the edges of the contacts 20 that are in each differential contact pair 22A, 22B. Reducing the capacitive coupling between the edges of the contacts 20 that are in adjacent differential contact pairs 22A, 22B is especially important when the socket assembly 10 is formed with a reduced pitch to increase contact density. In addition, when the capacitive coupling between the contacts 20 that forms a differential contact pair 22A, 22B is reduced, the differential characteristic impedance of each contact pair 22A, 22B does not decrease such that the high frequency impedance of the socket assembly 10 is more readily matched to an overall electronic system.
As shown in
In some embodiments, the contacts 20 may be a combination of power contacts (i.e., contacts that provide power to a processor) and I/O contacts (i.e., contacts that provide I/O signals to a processor). As shown in
Although the contacts 20 are shown as being arranged in a land grid array, the contacts 20 may be positioned in other arrangements as long as one of the contacts 22A in each differential pair 22A, 22B is rotated 180 degrees relative to the other contact 22B in each differential pair 22A, 22B. In addition, the number, size and type of contacts 20 may vary depending on the design of the socket assembly 10.
In some embodiments, the first side 24 of each contact 20 may have a different shape than the second side 25 of each contact 20, while in other embodiments the first side 24 of each contact 20 may have the same shape as the second side 25 of each contact 20. Although
In some forms, die 51 may be made of semiconducting material that has been separated from a wafer. Wafers may be made of semiconducting, non-semiconducting, or combinations of semiconducting and non-semiconducting materials.
In some embodiments, electronic assembly 50 may include a motherboard 55 that is positioned adjacent to the lower surface 14 of base 12 such that the motherboard 55 is electrically coupled to the solder balls 30 that are part of the socket assembly 10.
The electronic assembly 50 may further include a voltage source 61 that is electrically coupled to the die 51. Although the example voltage source 61 is shown in
A heat spreader 62 may be coupled to the die 51 to remove heat from the die 51 during operation of electronic assembly 50. Electronic assembly 50 may further include a heat sink 63 that is coupled to the heat spreader 62. In some forms, heat sink 63 may be coupled directly to die 51.
As discussed above, the contacts 20 that make up socket assembly 10 may be formed of power contacts and I/O contacts. In some embodiments, the I/O contacts 20 may be located directly below the die 51 to minimize the distance between the I/O contacts and the die 51.
Electronic assembly 50 may be adapted for use with a variety of different electronic devices. In some embodiments, the components in the electronic assembly 50 will be determined based on the space available and the application where the electronic assembly 50 is to be used (among other factors).
Electronic assembly 50 is electrically coupled to system bus 72 and may include any circuit, or combination of circuits. In one embodiment, electronic assembly 50 includes one or more of the socket assemblies 10 described herein.
In addition, electronic assembly 50 may include a processor which can be of any type. As used herein, processor means any type of circuit such as, but not limited to, a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a graphics processor or a digital signal processor.
Other types of circuits that may be included in electronic assembly 50 (or electrically coupled to electronic assembly 50) are a custom circuit or an application-specific integrated circuit, such as communications circuit 77 for use in wireless devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, portable computers, two-way radios, and similar electronic systems.
Electronic system 70 may also include an external memory 80 that in turn may include one or more memory elements suitable to the particular application, such as a main memory 82 in the form of random access memory (RAM), one or more hard drives 84, and/or one or more drives that handle removable media 86, such as diskettes, compact disks (CDs) and digital video disks (DVDs).
The electronic system 70 may also include a display device 88, a speaker 89, and a controller 90, such as a keyboard, mouse, trackball, game controller, microphone, voice-recognition device, or any other device that inputs information into the electronic system 70.
The socket assemblies and electronic assemblies described herein may be implemented in a number of different embodiments, including an electronic package, an electronic system and/or a computer system. The elements, materials, geometries, dimensions, and sequence of operations can all be varied to suit particular packaging requirements.
The socket assemblies and electronic assemblies described above may provide a solution for supplying power and I/O signals to a die using a reduced-pitch socket assembly without sacrificing the differential high speed performance of the processor. The arrangement of the contacts reduces the capacitive coupling between the edges of the contacts that are in a differential contact pair in order to avoid lowering the differential characteristic impedance of each differential pair of contacts below an optimum value even when the socket is form at a reduced pitch. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art from the above description.
