Advanced board technology for space applications

Abstract

As the impetus to develop payloads of lower weight and more functionality continues, the desire to incorporate commercially developed strategies increases. Whereas in the past, higher technology strategies for electronics packaging could be counted on to show up first in spacecraft payloads, today terrestrial applications driven by advances in commercial electronics are seeing these advances first. The primary concern with adoption of new strategies has been with reliability. This paper reviews the advances made in both packaging and board interconnect technology that are currently utilized in the commercial sector and examines the capability for use in space payloads. The weight and size characteristics of a reference board and spacecraft payload unit, put together with conventional space packaging technology, is evaluated and compared to the same reference board and unit built using newer commercial technology. It is found that substantial weight and size reductions can be achieved by incorporating commercial packaging technologies into space payloads. Reductions as high as 67% might be achieved. Manufacturability and thermomechanical reliability of the newer technologies are discussed. For these areas of concern, the newer packaging technologies can provide significant manufacturability and reliability enhancements.