Knowledge Based Design of 3D Electronic Circuit Carriers

Miniaturization, high reliability and low manufacturing costs require close spatial integration of mechanics and electronics. New production technologies such as MID (Molded Interconnect Device), which enables to manufacture three-dimensional circuit carriers and replace conventional PCBs, open up interesting perspectives in this context. These production technologies cause strong interdependencies between product design and manufacturing; they usually determine the product concept. These interdependencies are often not known to the designers. The design of systems with technologies like MID thus needs a design-supporting knowledge base to overcome this lack of information. This paper describes a knowledge base for the design of three-dimensional electronic circuit carriers in MID. The knowledge base provides the developer with adapted procedural models for the specific design task, which show the mentioned interdependencies, as well as appropriate guidelines and standards during the different design phases. Thus the necessary information is available to the designer at all times. The application of the knowledge base is shown by the example of the housing of an autonomous miniature robot. The miniature robot is manufactured in large numbers. It serves as a test bed for swarm intelligence and multi-agents applications in computer science as well as for the employment of the Technology MID.