Flexible integrated electronics technology

This paper describes a flexible integrated electronic technology by which large system functions can be readily integrated. The technology is based upon the use of beam-lead sealed-junction semiconductor devices and precision thin film circuit boards. Since the semiconductor devices are sealed, the cost and constraints of encapsulations are eliminated while the beam-leads minimize the cost and difficulty of chip interconnections. The designer is now free to optimize the chip complexity based on yield considerations and is able to freely mix chips requiring different process technologies without economic penalty. The result of this flexible technology is the realization of minimum cost, functionally optimized system building blocks.