Leon Li-Heng Wu

The design of the ES/9000 module

The ES/9000 thermal conduction module (TCM) is a significant improvement over the TCMs used in the current IBM 3090 series of mainframes. Included in the features of this module, which supports an order of magnitude increase in usable circuits, are a glass ceramic substrate material, buried engineering change wires, partial thin film redistribution, and on-module decoupling capacitors. The physical attributes and the electrical design considerations are described. The result is a packaged electronic technology that supports a machine cycle time that is approximately two times faster than the original 3090 technology. >

The design of ES/9000 module

The technology enhancements appearing in the glass ceramic TCM (thermal conduction module) of the ES/9000 systems are described and related to the system performance requirements. This module is larger, holds more circuits, supports higher power chips, and has more and faster signal connections than any of its predecessors. To assure the operational integrity of this module, much attention was paid to its electrical design. The interconnection and noise rules were carefully generated through extensive modeling and circuit simulation. Sophisticated design tools were generated to keep track of the noise and estimate the delay on each and every path in the TCM. A comprehensive set of measurements on specially built test vehicles measured in specialized testers was used to confirm the accuracy of the modules and rules. As a result, the TCM can support more functions and faster cycle times at a better quality level.<<ETX>>