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LAMINATE Technology with Internal Inductors
for the World's First On-board Silicon Tuner
Compatible with All Broadcasting Systems
Printed Circuit Board Functional Building Technology |
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Adjustment-free high-functionality
silicon tuner |
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Interposer substrate with internal
high-performance LAMINATE inductor |
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Integration of 7 inductors by minimizing
interference between them |
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Reduction of the spurious radiation
that could degrade picture quality
during analog broadcast reception |
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Since TV broadcasting systems differ by
regions across the world, separate TV chassis
and tuner modules had to be developed for
each.
Sony has now developed a demodulator
IC that comes in the same size and pin
assignment for all broadcasting systems. This
adjustment-free high-functionality silicon
tuner is compatible with all the world's
broadcasting systems, has enabled placement
of the tuner chip on board and is the first in
the world to use a common chassis that can
be readied for shipment anywhere simply by
changing the demodulator IC.
Competitors have also managed to place the
tuner chipsets on board, but functional issues
limit their use to specific regions or models
and they have not yielded adequate results
such as manufacturing cost advantages
derived from streamlining TV mass
production.
Sony replaced coil tuners with silicon
tuner ICs in 2007, but the inductor that
made up the RF filter was still an external
component. Inductor characteristics vary by
the component and inductors require an RF
filter after board mounting.
To place the tuner chip on board, Sony integrated the entire RF filter, the component
that determines tuner performance, and
designed it so it would not need to be
adjusted.
This issue will introduce the Sony component
technology that made it possible to place the
silicon tuner on board.
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 Adjustment-free Technology that Made
an On-board Tuner Possible |
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A problem factor in placing the silicon tuner
on board is the adjustment of the tracking
filter. To remove interference between
channels, a surface mount chip inductor was
used at the previous and following stages
to correct filter characteristic variations by
switching the internal variable capacitors
in the silicon tuner IC using control data.
However, since adjustments were required
after the silicon tuner IC and the inductor
components were placed on the board, they
could not be placed directly on the TV
board.
Using printed circuit board technology,
Sony integrated a LAMINATE inductor on an interposer substrate thus succeeding in
developing an on-board inductor with the
same characteristics as a chip component.
The adjustment so far carried out after
assembling the module board was completed
at the final check stage after assembling
the semiconductor package and this change
made it possible to place the silicon tuner
on board.
The next section will brief ly describe the
internal inductor module technology that
supports the on-board tuner and the problems
we solved.
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| LAMINATE Inductor |
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 Technology for Forming Components
on an Interposer Substrate
Inductors and other passive components can
be placed on an interposer substrate using
methods for mounting chip components on
a substrate and methods for forming and
integrating passive components on silicon
(Si) substrates and gallium arsenide (GaAs)
substrates. Sony decided not to choose these methods because they do not satisfy the
required performance, reliability and cost.
This time, Sony decided to integrate passive
components on an interposer substrate.
Inductor molding uses the wires of the
interposer substrate, standard design rules
and manufacturing processes to cut costs.
The elimination of contact points resulting
from integrating the chip components
assures reliability thus the inductor internal
module fulfills all the requirements of cost,
performance and reliability.
LAMINATE Technology Having the Same
Characteristics as a Chip Inductor
The risk of forming inductors using the
wires of the interposer substrate is that lack
of uniformity in the manufacture of wire
width will affect the accuracy of device
characteristics. Printed circuit boards are
normally made using the subtract method,
that is, a resist mask is formed on copper
plating which is exposed to a chemical that
etches the copper (Cu). The problem with this
method is that an intricate spiral pattern will
result in a lack of uniformity in line width
and the inductor will not fulfill the accuracy required by the tuner.
The semi-additive method, the standard
process used by Sony Chemical &
Information Device Corporation (referred
to as SCID below) on the LAMINATE mass
production line at the Neagari Plant can
form a precise pattern by (growing copper
plating) along the resist pattern. Laser Direct
Imaging (LDI) is another method that does
not use an exposure mask and thus removes
all instability factors such as the mask itself,
positioning inaccuracy and other quality
problems ensuring an inductor accuracy equal
to component accuracy or ±5%, which is
close to component accuracy. While being the
standard configuration at the SCID Neagari
Plant the optimization of inductor design has
produced inductor characteristics that can
compete with chip components. |
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Figure 1 : On-board Silicon Tuner that Made Possible Globally Unified Chassis
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 Noise Interference Problem |
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See
all articles with figures and tables.  |
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Vol.66 |
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