REPROGRAMMABLE CIRCUIT BOARD WITH ALIGNMENT-INSENSITIVE SUPPORT FOR MULTIPLE COMPONENT CONTACT TYPES
First Claim
1. A substrate on which a plurality of components can be affixed, wherein the substrate can be reversibly electronically programmed to establish signal-conducting interconnections between specified component contacts without having those interconnections pass through reprogrammable interconnection components affixed to said substrate.
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Abstract
The present invention is directed to a system that programmably interconnects integrated circuit chips and other components at near-intra-chip density. The system'"'"'s contact structure allows it to adapt to components with a wide variety of contact spacings and interconnection requirements, the use of releasable attachment means allows component placement to be modified as needed, the system identifies the contacts and the components to facilitate specifying the inter-component connections, and the system provides signal conditioning and retiming to minimize issues with signal integrity and signal skew.
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Citations
120 Claims
- 1. A substrate on which a plurality of components can be affixed, wherein the substrate can be reversibly electronically programmed to establish signal-conducting interconnections between specified component contacts without having those interconnections pass through reprogrammable interconnection components affixed to said substrate.
- 20. A substrate on which a plurality of components can be affixed, wherein the substrate can be electronically programmed to establish signal-conducting interconnections between specified component contacts without having those interconnections pass through programmable interconnection components affixed to said substrate, wherein said substrate has signal amplifiers or signal repeaters embedded in it.
- 53. A method for manufacturing a multi-chip module comprising a substrate on which a plurality of components can be affixed, wherein the substrate can be electronically programmed to establish signal-conducting interconnections between specified component contacts, the method comprising determining a position of components affixed to the substrate, and using said position in programming said signal-conducting interconnections between specified component contacts.
- 96. A substrate on which a plurality of components can be affixed, wherein the substrate has signal-conducting interconnections establish between specified component contacts without having those interconnections pass through other components affixed to said substrate, wherein said substrate has signal amplifiers or signal repeaters embedded in it.
- 102. An alignment-insensitive component connection apparatus comprising a substrate on which at least one component having connection contacts can be affixed, wherein the substrate has an array of micro-contacts dimensioned smaller than said contacts of said component such that at least one of said micro-contacts will be in contact with each one of said component contacts and at least some of said component contacts will be in contact with a plurality of said micro-contacts and none of said micro-contacts will be in contact with two of said component contacts, and switch circuitry for selectively connecting said micro-contacts to component contacts for providing an interconnecting path for said component contacts to other devices.
- 110. A method of prototyping a multi-chip system using a programmable circuit board adapted to receive and programmably interconnect a plurality of components, the method comprising connecting and testing a subset of said components before connecting and testing said subset with more of said components.
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116. A method of manufacturing a multi-chip system using a programmable circuit board having alignment-insensitive micro-contacts for receiving contacts of said components and being adapted to receive and programmably interconnect a plurality of components, the method comprising manually placing said components on said substrate, wherein said components are operational within said multi-chip system as manually positioned.
- 117. A method of manufacturing a multi-chip system using a programmable circuit board having alignment-insensitive contacts for receiving contacts of said components and being adapted to receive and programmably interconnect a plurality of components, the method comprising automatically discovering which ones of said programmable circuit board contacts are in electrical contact with said component contacts, and selectively connecting said programmable circuit board contacts to an interconnecting path for said component contacts to other devices.
Specification