Last year, Screaming Circuits started closely following the Ti OMAP processor and it’s package on package (POP) form factor. The OMAP 35XX processors are very nice on their own, being a very hi-performance ARM jobby, but the package on package made it something for us to take real notice of. POP had been done before, but this seemed to be the first broad-audience application of the technique.
But is it really the first common package on package application? I’ve seen some unintentional package on package, like the capacitor-under-connector pictured on the right in this post. That’s not so fun, but it can keep your board size down — as long as you don’t want it to actually work. And then, many, many network cards used to have a chip placed right under their ROM socket. Would you call that package on package?
How about the old Ti SN754410 motor driver? It’s pretty common for robot buildersto stack a pair of them to get two amps of drive from a pair of one amp chips. That’s probably more a case of actual package on package than is the network card example. Maybe the network card should be called “package under package”. I know, the OMAP is a BGA, but that might actually make it easier to manufacture. With the 754410, all of those leads have to be hand soldered. The OMAP, we just put it on our machines and they do all the work for us.
The other “new, but really old” subject I’m thinking about is cloud computing. Yes, it’s the newest rage in the software and application world right now, but is it really that new? Or has just the name been changed so some pundit can claim to have invented a new concept? I learned software development in a cloud computing environment – back in the early 1980’s.
Duane Benson
The story you are about to hear is old; only the names have been changed to protect the egos.