Dec 12 2005
3M Electronics announced today that its advanced laminate, 3M embedded capacitor material, is RoHS compliant.(a) OEMs and printed circuit board fabricators are using this innovative material to help increase speed and performance of their boards. They are also using the material to meet the requirements of space-constrained designs common in portable products and military applications.
3M embedded capacitance material can be made with a dielectric thickness down to 8 microns and a capacitance density over 10 nanofarads per square inch, which makes it among the thinnest and highest capacitance density materials available for embedding planar capacitance in circuit boards. When used as "power" and "ground" layers in a multilayer PCB, this material effectively becomes a shared decoupling capacitor inside the board, allowing for the elimination of many discrete surface-mount capacitors and their associated vias.
The material is compatible with all rigid and flex PCB processing including laser drilling. Fabricators and OEMs worldwide can use this material without purchasing a license from 3M. Consequently, such OEMs are unrestricted in their choice of fabricator.
The 3M laminate material allows designers and manufacturers of high-speed digital printed circuit boards to achieve higher speeds while simplifying design trade-offs. When used as a power-ground core in a multilayer printed circuit board, 3M embedded capacitor material effectively becomes a decoupling capacitor inside the board. The material allows designers to eliminate large numbers of decoupling capacitors, increases useable board area; enables faster signaling; lowers radiated emissions (EMI); and saves engineering time associated with power distribution design and board layout. Printed circuit board fabricators can use the material in military, automated test equipment, computer and telecommunications applications.