The Quest for a 21st Century Prototyping Board

Andrew Yaung and Neal Greenberg, Co-founders and inventors of SchmartBoard

In 2003 while servicing companies with electronic engineering and prototype manufacturing services, we noticed that companies were spending too much time and money perfecting circuits for new products. They would spend weeks doing a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout, spend a lot of money on small volumes of custom PCBs, have them populated with the components, and test them for functionality. Rarely would “Revision A” work perfectly, so they would in many cases have to do the whole process over again one or more times.

With increasing time-to-market issues and cost concerns in our fast moving world, we knew that there had to be a better way. We also realized that. in the past, a prototyping board could save the engineer valuable time and money by allowing changes to be made quickly and inexpensively. But prototyping boards had not kept up with technology. Prototyping boards have existed for a long time, but as surface mount components have become smaller and smaller, these boards have not kept up with the technology and have not remained a practical tool for most applications.

SchmartBoard (TM) was born. SchmartBoard's goal was to make prototype boards useful again. SchmartBoard wanted to create a system that allowed companies to cleanly, quickly and inexpensively create working prototype circuits using today's component technology. The idea was not to replace the custom PCB prototype step but to assure that prototype boards would not have to be produced numerous times. This would reduce the time-to-market and overall development costs much like wire wrapping did the same a generation ago.

Figure 1. Two SchmartBoards (TM) being connected together using the Schmart Bridge.

The first SchmartBoard product started shipping in October 2003. We knew that the product was far from our vision, but we also felt that the product had many advantages over current technologies. SchmartBoard sold mostly direct to consumers in order to establish a relationship with our users, and to understand what they liked and disliked. The product had two benefits over existing technologies on the market. The first was called SchmartBridge (TM) . We made our boards 5 cm x 5 cm (2 in x 2 in) in size. These boards supported numerous pitches of the most popular components for SO, QFP, PLCC packages as well as through-hole components. We then put notches on all four sides that connected to a plastic piece called the SchmartBridge. The SchmartBridge allowed you to connect the boards together. The reason for this is to first reduce the real estate, and second to make testing and debugging easier. We felt that users should be able to choose what is on their real estate. By building it in small blocks, they could do that. In addition, by allowing users to build a block at a time and then connecting them together using the SchmartBridge, testing and debugging can be performed on the individual circuit blocks instead of the entire prototyping board as in traditional options. We placed the patent under the title “Electronic Circuit Building Blocks” because it allowed one to build a circuit block by block. Our users quickly understood, and some began calling the product “Legos for Engineers.”

Figure 2. Example of SchmartTrace (TM) technology.

The second innovation was SchmartTrace (TM) . In many previous prototyping products, a user had to include wire jumpers between every component. The resulting jumble of wires was very difficult to navigate. If there was a short or open circuit or defective component, good luck finding it.

The idea of SchmartTrace was to put the pads of the main IC being supported in the center of the 5 cm x 5 cm block, and then trace out all of the leads to the edge of the board with surface mount pads and through holes within the traces for discrete components. Now within the individual SchmartBoard, jumper wires are minimized. For the most part, jumpers are mainly used between each SchmartBoard in a circuit.

We had users who were happier than before, but surveys confirmed that we had a long way to go. One issue was that many engineers wanted to work on the core IP part of the board and not the common portion of circuits, such as I/O, power or a memory block. The modular aspect of our product and knowledge of how the software developer market had evolved gave us a solution for this issue. Today it is rare that software developers write an entire program from scratch. They write the IP portion of the program and then buy common cores to glue to the core program to create the final product. This reduces time to market and saves money. SchmartBridge provided the glue. We could create common circuits such as I/O, memory, power, etc., and allow people to “glue” them to their core circuit. The SchmartModule (TM) was born.

Figure 3. RS232 SchmartModule.

SchmartModules are common circuits, such as I/O, power, memory and others that are working, tested circuits that can be added to a SchmartBoard circuit. It will take time to create large numbers of SchmartModules, so we came up with a solution to help in the interim. We took a look at how open source brought the software community together to help each other. In the summer of 2005 we started the SchmartDeveloper program. This is a program in which engineers from around the world post designs of common circuits that include a bill of materials, schematic and which SchmartBoards to use.

We still had the largest problem to solve. People loved the boards and the modules, but many just did not have the skills to hand-solder small components. Two problems impede people's ability to hand solder tiny surface mount components. The first is the need to place and hold the components correctly in place on the pad surface. The second is hand soldering in such small confined areas without creating short circuits. On 19 September 2005 we released SchmartBoard|ez (TM) .

Figure 4. The SchmartBoard|ez (TM) employs a raised solder mask that forms canals around pre-tinned traces. This holds surface-mount integrated circuits in place and permits easy soldering.

SchmartBoard|ez's patent pending technology solves these issues in the following way. Unlike all other circuit boards, the solder mask is higher than the pads, not lower. This creates canals on the surface of the board. The solder mask makes the walls of the canal, and the floor of the canal is the pad surface. The legs of a surface mount IC fit into these canals, thus, allowing easy hand placement of the chip legs onto the pads.

Figure 5. A fine-tipped soldering iron melts the thin layer of solder inside each SchmartBoard|ez canal. The raised solder mask prevents short circuits between traces.

The IC is soldered in place using a soldering iron with a finely pointed tip. No external solder is required. Instead, the soldering iron heats the solder on the pads in each of the canals and pushes the molten solder from the end of the canal until the iron touches the chip's leg. The solder stays in the canal, thus, assuring that no shorts are created. This is repeated for each canal that has a leg to be soldered.

In the case of Ball Grid Arrays Integrated Circuits, the BGA is easily placed in the same manner as the ICs. A soldering iron heats the underside of the board where there are pass through vias. By touching each via with the soldering iron, the BGA is soldered in place with the assurance of no opens or shorts without the need for an x-ray.

Figure 6. SchmartBoard|ez technology allows even a 10-year old to hand solder the smallest IC on the market, something very few engineers could do using previous prototype technologies.

With the SchmartBoard|ez technology, a 10-year old can hand solder the smallest IC on the market, something that very few engineers could do before the product launched. We are hoping that this technology has major implications for electronics education, not only at the college level but also down to secondary schools. In September 2005, SchmartBoard was chosen to launch this product at DEMOfall, a show where 65 of the most innovative technologies were announced to the world. Previous technologies launched there include Tivo, Palm, and Java. The product was also chosen by The Tech Museum in San Jose as the winner of the first annual “Inny” award and will be on display there.

While we have temporarily paused to pat ourselves on the back, we aren't quite there yet. We are currently working on the issues of impedance and high-speed signals. We also believe that this technology can be used to improve yields for volume manufacturing and are in the process of pursuing partners for this endeavor.

Readers of the Citizen Scientist can go to www.schmartboard.com to see a flash video of the technology and to request a free sample.