18th Mar 09
The semiconductor devices and components
for thinning laptops
Dell has launched a new thin laptop branded has adamo with
total thickness of 1.64 cm. This slim laptop might be the
thinnest in comparison to other laptop brands. But when
we compare to the thickness of smart phones that also hold
display, battery, keyboard, camera module and external memory
card, 1.64 cm is no that great achievement.
The two big obstacles to reduce the thickness of laptop
are disk drive and battery. With thin solid-state drive
replacing magnetic drive, disk drive will clear its thickness
hurdle. Solid-state drives can be even reduced to a thickness
of <2mm.
Battery size reduction is a challenge, since its a battery
pack the thickness can be reduced to some extent by rearranging
the cells inside the pack so that the width and breadth
can be grown with volume remaining same.
What about the semiconductors and other components?
It can be said, there is no silicon vendor for laptop market
not addressing the thickness issue. In fact there are no
new semiconductor devices released for mobile and portable
electronics market, without thinness specialization. From
MOSFET to processor, the thin profile is selling strength.
These devices just got to pop up not greater than 1 mm above
the PCB to be selected for adamo type of laptops. The latest
power devices like MOSFETS come in the thickness range of
0.7 mm.
The passive components such as capacitor and other electromechanical
components are not matching to the thickness offered by
their silicon companions. They project 0.5 mm to 1mm higher
than semiconductor devices. It's opportunity for passive
component manufacturers to innovate.
The trend in thinning the laptop may end up the laptop
getting as thin as hardbound of a book, just few mm. So
is the challenge for component vendors to reduce their component
thickness further down.
But does the market accept the thin laptops? We got wait
and see. It looks to be more of a fashion driven rather
than an advantage.
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