FUTURE DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR MOTOROLA SMART CONNECTOR

摘要

Two approaches for developing future designs will be presented. A smart connector based on solid copper substrate and a 3-D MID attempt was made. The use of thermoplastics and their selective metal plating opens a new dimension of circuit carrier design to the electronics industry: 3-D Moulded Interconnect Devices (3-D MID) are injection moulded thermoplastic parts with integrated circuit traces. They provide enormous technical and economic potential. The investigation focused on the integration of semiconductor components, connector and heat sink elements as well as circuit layout in an MID assembly. Possible MID manufacturing processes were identified and each process chain was investigated for its advantages and disadvantages. In the early design phase the two prototypes were assessed regarding material composition, energy use during the life cycle, and end of life properties, in order to be able to provide a product with low environmental impact. A set of tools, such as material assay, the Green Design Advisor (GDA), the Motorola Design for Environment tool, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) were used to for this purpose..