Embedding components within a PCB substrate offers a range of benefits in terms of space and performance. But this alternative approach to product design demands support from the entire supply chain, including EDA vendors.
Continued pressure for electronic devices that provide greater functionality in ever-smaller form-factors is not only providing the driving force behind developing smaller surface-mount components and semiconductor geometries, but is also fuelling another trend that sees passive and active components being embedded within PCB substrates.
It is a trend that has a significant impact on the entire electronics supply chain, a challenge that suppliers at every stage are now striving to meet. Making best use of these developments falls to the design engineering team, who now need access to design automation tools that can offer greater flexibility in the way PCBs are conceived and created.
The design rules of this new paradigm present their own challenges and it is here where EDA tools vendors are now focusing their development efforts, in order to enable more OEMs to gain competitive access to this enabling and evolutionary capability.
There are essentially two methods for embedding components into a substrate: formed or inserted. The former effectively uses patterns of copper plating and resistive thin film to create passive (resistive, capacitive or inductive) components on an embedded (or surface) layer. The latter is the more evolutionary, as it allows discrete components, bare die or even modules to be placed below the surface of the substrate.
