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Packaging lead time has “dramatically increased” from eight to more than 50 weeks, warns Sondrel
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ust when the supply shortage of semiconductors seems to be easing, Sondrel is warning of an issue in the supply chain that may well cause unexpected delays to orders. In the initial stages of the Covid pandemic, packaging houses were badly hit by cancellation of orders and had to lay off staff or even close down. As silicon production surges, they are struggling to cope with the tsunami of orders especially as it takes time to build new facilities and train staff. The result of this is that the lead time for packaging has increased from eight to nine weeks to as much as 50 weeks or more. Alaa Alani, Sondrel’s head of packaging, explained: “The sequence of booking the
stages in the supply chain has completely changed. Previously the design would be finished and then sent off to be made into wafers, which still takes around 12 weeks. At the same time, the details for the packaging would be sent to the packaging company so that was ready before the silicon. The new timeline means that the packaging design has to be finished and booked 20 or more weeks before the final silicon design to ensure that the silicon and packaging come together at the right time.”
He went on to add that not being aware of this and planning accordingly could introduce a delay in the production of a chip by as much as 40 weeks. Sondrel, which
offers a complete turnkey ASIC design and manufacturing service, has devised a solution to start the SoC package planning and design by assigning die bumps and assigning their x/y coordinates relative to the die corner. Moving this stage to much earlier in the supply chain sequence avoids a massive and costly delay.
The bump locations are determined for each of the macros and PHYs as specified by the IP vendors using the floor plan and the SoC partitions’ locations. For hard macros such as PCIe, HDMI and others, the bumps locations are specified by their relative offset from the macro corner whereas in soft macros (e.g., DDR), it is based on a certain
pattern and a minimum pitch used in the bump assignment.
Sondrel has a white paper ‘Early Bump Assignment Methodology for SoCs in Flip Chip BGA Packages’ that discusses this and is available on its website.
www.sondrel.com Communication solutions for Battery Energy Storage Systems H
MS Networks is presenting several communication solutions for the rapidly expanding battery market. Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) require communication capabilities to connect to batteries and peripheral components, communicate with the power grid, monitor systems remotely and much more.
Battery Energy Storage Systems are made up of battery cells which are combined into battery packs which can then be combined into containers which in turn can make up battery parks the size of several football fields. The systems can use new or recycled batteries and combine many different components. However, these large battery parks need a lot of communication capabilities in order to work. HMS now presents a comprehensive
package of communication solutions catered for this application area.
Since the battery market has been spearheaded by the car industry, CAN is the communication standard of choice in many systems. HMS offers an extensive portfolio of communication solutions via the Ixxat brand – for PC connection, networking, line extension, galvanic isolation and more. In networking, the protection of components is crucial, both from external sources (like lightning strikes) and from system-related issues (AC/DC noise).
Battery Energy Storage Systems often combine a variety of different equipment from different industries within a single application – batteries, BMS, PLCs, fire detection units or air conditioning. To combine different equipment, it is necessary
Extensive range of 7.0-inch TFT display modules
A
comprehensive range of industrial specification, wide aspect ratio 7.0- inch TFT display modules are now available from Review Display Systems (RDS). RDS is able to source, supply and support an extensive line-up of cost effective, industry standard 7.0-inch TFT display modules that are suitable for use in a broad range of industry sectors, applications, and operating environments.
www.cieonline.co.uk
to interconnect various protocols and network standards. CAN, Modbus, BACnet, KNX and other protocols can be easily linked via intelligent gateways from HMS, which handle the all-important data exchange while also enabling centralized control. In addition, these gateways can selectively filter, map and, if necessary, manipulate the data in order to realize the best possible data exchange. Cloud/SCADA connectivity and remote access intelligent networking is also required in order to connect to cloud solutions or SCADA systems. This connection can be made by using SG (Smart Grid) gateways from HMS that support both energy and industrial fieldbus protocols, as well as protocols required for cloud connection. The SG gateways enable centralized control as well as remote access for predictive
maintenance, logging or data visualization using the i4SCADA solution from the HMS-owned company WEBfactory. The SG gateways also provide robust cybersecurity features, such as firewall, OpenVPN, TLS encryption and user management.
www.ixxat.com/bess
The 7.0-inch display modules feature a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and are
available in a variety of resolutions including 800 x 480 pixels (WVGA), 1024 x 600 pixels (WSVGA), and 1280 x 800 pixels (WXGA). In-plane switching (IPS) is available on some of the 7.0-inch display modules which is said to enable exceptional optical performance, highly consistent colour reproduction and wide viewing angles. Long-lifetime LED backlights with brightness specifications from 300cd/m² up to high luminance 1500cd/m² versions are supported. For harsh environments, an extended operating
temperature range of -30°C to +85°C is also available.
A choice of data interfaces includes 24-bit RGB, 6-bit and 8-bit LVDS and MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) enable support for a colour palette of up to 16.7 million colours. Interconnect options include FFC (flat flexible cable) and ZIF (zero insertion force) connectors. To aid and assist the development and implementation of graphical user interfaces, resistive and multi-touch projected capacitive (PCap) touch solutions are available.
www.review-displays.co.uk Components in Electronics April 2022 7
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