A mobile TV/GPS module by embedding a GPS IC in printed-circuit-board

GPS and mobile TV are widely used in a lot of portable device, navigation, and mobile phone. As this solution, this paper presents a compact module for a mobile TV with GPS by using system-on-package (SoP) technology. In order to implement a slim and compact module, a GPS chip is embedded in printed-circuit-board (PCB) and a mobile TV IC and other components are mounted in PCB. This module is composed of a mobile TV IC, a GPS IC, a BPF, a crystal, regulators, shunt capacitors, series inductors, and a loop filter. This module uses lamination process and a GPS IC is embedded by using chip-first process. Polymer substrate consists of epoxy core as core substrate and ajimoto-bonding film (ABF) to bond each layer. Three times lamination and via drill/Cu plated are proposed. The dimension of a GPS IC is 3.5 mm × 3.2 mm × 0.32 mm. An IC is positioned in epoxy core. The thickness of epoxy cores, two kind of ABFs, 350 um, 40 um, and 20 um are applied, respectively. 0.6 mm thickness is obtained in this paper by embedding an IC. In order to check the performance and size for embedded modules, two representative modules for mobile TV/GPS with surface mounting technology (SMT) and with SoP technology are designed and compared. The size of module with SMT and SoP are as 16.5 mm × 11.5 mm × 1.1 mm and 13.5 mm × 12.5 mm × 1.1 mm, respectively. Almost 11 % size reduction is obtained by SoP. A presented module for a mobile TV/GPS was measured by DVB-TDMB test set and GPS program. Rx sensitivity of a mobile TV and a GPS is measured as -92 dBm and -162 dBm/Hz, respectively. Mobile broadcast and GPS information are well received and performed in commercial field. As a result, SoP technology was better than SMT technology in a view of size under good performance.