AMD 486 processor. Note the logo in the lower right corner. Package is from Kyocera (Click for larger version)

What do all 3 of these things have in common? And what in the world do they have to do with computer processors (ok modern oscilloscopes and cell phones DO have CPUs in them but spark plugs?). Tektronix was started here in Oregon in 1946 making oscilloscopes and other test equipment.  Throughout the last 70 years they have continued to do so, but along the way they also began to make everything needed to manufacture the final equipment they sold.  Design/simulation software, PCB manufacturing, IC manufacturing, displays, and even the packaging used for IC’s.  In recent years many of these vertically integrated operations have been spun off, but they do still maintain some.

Tektronix packaging options from the early 1990’s (Click for larger version)

When an IC manufacturer (such as Intel, AMD, etc) designs/builds an IC what they typically are creating (or having made in the case of fabless companies) is the silicon die itself.  This little piece of silicon contains the millions of transistors needed to perform whatever task its made for, but for most uses that silicon die needs to be packaged to be useful.  A sliver of silicon is hard to work with and integrate into designs, a package provides the routing of wire/leads to the die, as well as protects it from the environment, while dissipating any heat it generates.

IC manufactures do not typically make their own packages, they are either contracted out or bought off the shelf.  Tektronix is one of several companies that makes and sells IC packages.  The pictured display is a sample of some of the packaging types they offered.  You can recognize some of the more common packages, as well as some more specialty ones such as the ‘POWER TAB’ that was used in analog equipment frequently (like audio amplifiers etc).

Anam/Amkor Test package

Tektronix isn’t the only company that offers packages for IC.  Perhaps the two largest are NGK and Kyocera.  Both have extensive experience with ceramics, a material very useful in IC packages.  Developing high strength, high temperature ceramics for spark plugs, isn’t so much different from designing the same for a high end processor.  Kyocera started life making ceramic insulators, well before ever getting into cell phones (in 2000) and ceramic packaging continues to be their core business.

Often times assembly and test of a IC is handled by yet another company.  Many companies (such as Amkor) entire business is based on taking IC dies from one company, assembling them into packages from another, testing them, and shipping them.  So next time you look at a CPU and read its makers name boldly written on its top, there is a good chance that that name had but one part in that IC.

Juno – RAD750 Powered Mission to Jupiter

NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter arrives in just about a day, after a 5 year journey that began in August of 2011 aboard an Atlas V rocket.  The Juno mission is primarily concerned with studying the magnetic fields, particles, and structure of Jupiter.  Finding out how Jupiter works, and what its core is made of are some of Juno’s goals.  None of the experiments need a camera, but NASA decided, in the interest of public outreach and education, that if you are going to spend $1 billion to send a probe to Jupiter, it probably should have a camera.  Energetic particle detectors, Magnetometers, and Auroral Mappers are great for science, but what the public is inspired by is pretty pictures of wild and distant worlds.

Juno is powered by a now familiar computer, the BAE RAD750 PowerPC radiation hardened computer.  It operates at up to 200MHz (about the processing power of a mid 1990’s Apple Computer) and includes 256MB of Flash memory and 128MB of DRAM.  It (and the other electronics) are encased in a 1cm thick titanium radiation vault.  Flying in a polar orbit around Jupiter, Juno will experience intense radiation and magnetic fields.  The probe is expected to encounter radiation levels in the order of 10Mrads+.  The vault limits this to 25krads, within what the electronics can handle.  It should be noted that a dose of 10krads is fatal in most cases.  This intense of radiation will degrade the prober, even with shielding, resulting in a mission life of only 37 orbits (a little over a year) before the probe will be gracefully crashed into Jupiter.

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Continuing our goal of having test boards available for pretty much every common architecture of the 1970’s we now have a board available for testing Signetics (and later Philips) 8-bit NMOS processor, the 2650, 2650A and 2650B.  Made on a cool black PCB they are a fairly simple system, but are capable of testing some of the special features of the 2650 as well as the added features of the 2650B (if anyone happens to locate one)

These chips did not achieve the wide microcomputer success hoped for (likely due to a lack of second sourcing) they did find their way into many industrial/embedding systems, as well as many arcade/video games (including some made by ATARI).

These boards are in stock, and ship world wide for $94.95.  Head on over to the 2650 page to grab one.