A DEVICE HAVING A CIRCUIT BOARD FOR CONNECTING A PLURALITY OF IC-CHIPS

Abstract: An IC-packaged device (10) comprises a lower plate (3) which has wiring patterns (q) at least on an upper surface (3a); an upper plate (2) which has upper surface wiring patterns (P, n) and at least an opening hole (h, H) and are superimposed on the lower plate when used; and a plurality of IC chips (A, B) which has a lot of connecting terminal groups mounted on the upper plate. In this structure, some of the connecting terminal groups of the plurality of IC chips are wire-bonded to the wiring patterns on the upper plate, while the other of the connecting terminal groups of the plurality of IC chips pass through the opening hole in the upper plate and are wire-bonded directly to the wiring patterns on the lower plate.

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to an IC-support device having a plurality of multiterminal IC chips, such as a memory card. 2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, as the capacities of semiconductor memories, e.g. ROM's and RAM's, have been increased, memory cards in whch a lot of IC chips for these semiconductor memories are packaged upon or within a single substrate, have been manufactured and used in a wide area of application such as games and process controls. However, the above IC chips for semiconductor memories have each thirty to fifty connecting terminals, and these connecting terminals are common connecting terminals such as data bus terminals and control bus terminals, with the exception of some individual terminals such as a chip enable terminal. Thus there is a problem of connecting and wiring of these common connecting terminals and individual connecting terminals on a small substrate. US-A-4320438 discloses a multi-layer ceramic package in which there is provided a base layer, an intermediate layer on which a chip array is provided and an upper layer with there being a further ring layer and a cover layer. The upper surface of the base layer has a conductive pattern thereon and the upper surface of the intermediate layer also has a conducting pattern thereon. The chips are connected together by wire bonding both directly between the chips and to bonding through lands disposed between and separating the chips. Additionally the conductive patterns on the base layer and the intermediate layer are interconnected by through plated metalised holes. Such a conventional wiring structure will hereinafter be described with reference to Figures 1-3 of the accompanying drawings. US-A-4237522 discloses a packaging structure for suppressing electrical noise between chips by providing power sheets perpendicular to the IC packaged substrate. IC chips are arranged in rows on the upper surface of the substrate, each chip being square-shaped and its sides being arranged inclinedly with reference to the row direction. A conventional wiring structure will now be described with reference to the drawings: FIG. 1 is a plan view of a conventional memory card; FIG. 2 is a partially plan view illustrating connecting and wiring between IC chips of the conventional memory card shown in FIG. 1; and FIG. 3 is a partially sectional view thereof. A substrate 50 which forms a memory card 5 is a double-sided wiring board, as shown in FIG. 3. On an upper surface 50a, twenty IC chips denoted at A₁ to A₂₀ are bonded, and upper surface patterns "a" each shown by a solid line, bonding patterns "n" each shown by a black circle and through-hole patterns "m" each shown by a white circle are provided. On the other hand, on a lower surface 50b, lower surface patterns "b" each shown by a dotted line are provided and connected to upper surface 50a by means of through-hole patterns "m". As shown in FIG. 2, each IC chip "A" is square-shaped, and one pair of corresponding sides "c" and "d" are each provided with connecting terminals while the other pair of corresponding sides "e" and "f" are not provided with any connecting terminal (each side of one IC chip is shown by a dotted line for ease of understanding). All the connecting terminals provided at side "c" are common connecting terminals, and among the connecting terminals provided at side "d", nineteen terminals are common connecting terminals and one terminal is a chip enable terminal. Connecting and wiring between the above IC chips will be described with reference to A₁, A₂ and A₃. As shown in FIG. 2, twenty connecting terminals provided at side c₂ of IC chip A₂ are connected to respective bonding patterns n₂, and twenty connecting terminals provided at side d₂ are connected to respective through-hole patterns m₂ each by wire bonding. In a similar way, as for IC chip A₃, connecting terminals at side c₃ are connected to the respective bonding patterns n₃, and connecting terminals at side d₃ are connected to respective through-hole patterns m₃ each by wire bonding. Half (ten in number) of bonding patterns n₂ connected to connecting terminals of IC chip A₂ are connected to respective bonding patterns n₃ connected to the common connecting terminals of IC chip A₃, by means of ten upper surface patterns a₁ which are arranged on the upper part (on the plane of the drawing) of IC chip A₂ so as to avoid the through-hole patterns m₂, and the remaining bonding patterns n₂ are connected to the corresponding bonding patterns m₃ of IC chip A₃ by means of ten upper surface patterns a₂ which are arranged on the lower part (on the plane of the drawing) of IC chip A₂. Furthermore through-hole patterns m₂ connected to connecting terminals of IC chip A₂, are directly connected to through-hole patterns m₃ of IC chip A₃ by means of lower surface patterns "b" arranged on the lower surface of substrate 50. That is to say, the above-mentioned structure allows connections between common connecting terminals which are provided at one side of each IC chip to be made on upper surface 50a to which IC chips are bonded. On lower surface 50b where no IC chip exists, connections between common connecting terminals provided at the other side of the IC chip are made and at the same time the wiring of an individual connecting terminal is separately made all over the surface. The above is the connection structure between the respective IC chips. Next, the entire connection structure will be described with reference to FIG. 1. That is to say, twenty IC chips A₁ to A₂₀ are arranged and bonded in four rows on substrate 50 in the arrangement direction, as shown by arrow B. At this time, as shown by arrows, by reversing the direction of IC chips every row, the IC chips can be connected on the same plane without crossing the connections between IC chips throughout each of rows. As mentioned above, the conventional memory card is designed so that the sides of an IC chip having connecting terminals will be perpendicular to the arrangement direction of IC chips on the substrate. Therefore, wiring between common connecting terminals must be divided into the upper surface and the lower surface of the substrate. As a result, there is a problem that since a costly double-sided print board must be used and a costly process of making through-hole patterns must be conducted, the cost of the entire memory card is raised. On the other hand, by use of a single-sided print board, it is possible to make all connections between common connecting terminals on the IC chip bonding surface, but this requires considerably wide wiring space at both sides of an IC chip, and therefore, it is necessary to make an arrangement, with the distance between IC chips kept long. As a result, there causes a problem that the number of IC chips being mountable on a single card is limited. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The object of the present invention is to provide an IC-support device such as a memory card which is free of the above problems, low in cost and has a high packing density. According to one aspect of this invention, there is provided an IC-memory card comprising: a lower plate having wiring patterns at least on an upper surface; an upper plate having upper surface wiring patterns, said upper plate being superimposed on said lower plate; and a plurality of IC chips mounted on said upper plate, each IC chip having a plurality of connecting terminal groups and a chip enable terminal for selecting the individual IC chips; wherein said upper plate has at least one opening hole therethrough and some of the connecting terminal groups of said plurality of IC chips being wire-bonded to the wiring patterns on said upper plate, the other of the connecting terminal groups of said plurality of IC chips being connected through the at least one opening hole in said upper plate so as to be wire-bonded directly to the wiring patterns on said lower plate; wherein said chips are linearly arranged in at least one row, the at least one opening hole in said upper plate is an elongated opening hole having longer sides parallel to the row direction of arrangement of said linearly arranged IC chips, each of said IC chips has the common connecting terminal groups arranged at a first side parallel to the longer sides of said elongated opening hole and at a second side perpendicular to said first side, respectively, said common connecting terminal group at the second side perpendicular to the longer side of said elongated opening hole being wire-bonded to the wiring patterns on said upper plate, and said common connecting terminal group at the first side parallel to the longer side of said elongated opening hole being wire-bonded through said elongated opening hole directly to the wiring patterns on the lower plate. According to a further aspect of this invention there is provided an IC-memory card comprising: a lower plate having wiring patterns at least on an upper surface; an upper plate having upper surface wiring patterns, said upper plate being superimposed on said lower plate; and a plurality of IC chips mounted on said upper plate and being linearly arranged in at least one row; wherein an opening hole through said upper plate is provided in a corresponding position to each IC chip on said upper plate; each of said IC chips is substantially square-shaped, has one common connecting terminal group and a chip enable terminal at a first side of the four sides of the square and has another common connecting terminal group at a second side opposite to said first side; the wiring patterns on said upper plate comprises two sets of wiring patterns provided parallel to the row direction; the sides of said IC chips are arranged inclinedly with reference to the row direction; the first side of each said IC chip and a third side which is adjacent to the first side and which has no connecting terminal are superimposed on one set of the two sets of wiring patterns on said upper plate; and the second side of said IC chip and a fourth side which is adjacent to the second side and has no connecting terminal are superimposed on the other set of the two sets of wiring patterns on said upper plate; and wherein said one common connecting terminal group at the first side of said IC chip and the other common connecting terminal group at the second side opposite to the first side are wire-bonded to said two sets of wiring patterns on the upper plate respectively, and each of said IC chip enable terminals is wire-bonded through a respective one of said opening holes directly to each of the wiring patterns on the lower plate. Advantageously on the upper plate, a seal frame is provided for enclosing the plurality of IC chips, and a resin is injected inside the seal frame. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a plan view of a conventional memory card; Figures 2 and 3 are a partially plan view and a partially sectional view both of the memory card shown in Figure 1; Figure 4 is a plan view of a first embodiment of a memory card according to the present invention; Figures 5 and 6 are a partially plan view and a partially sectional view of the memory card shown in Figure 4; Figure 7 is a plan view of a second embodiment of a memory card according to the present invention; Figures 8 and 9 are sectional views taken along A-A and B-B respectively of the memory card shown in Figure 7; Figures 10 and 11 are a top plan view and a bottom plan view both of the lower plate of the second embodiment; FIG. 12 is a plan view of the upper plate of the second embodiment; and FIG. 13 and 14 are plan views of seal frames used in the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 4 is a plan view of a first embodiment of a memory card according to the present invention; FIG. 5 is a partial plan view illustrating the connecting and wiring between IC chips; and FIG. 6 is a partial sectional view thereof. As shown in FIG. 6, a substrate 1 which forms a memory card, comprises a lamination of an upper plate 2 and a lower plate 3 both made of a single-sided print board. Pattern surface 2a of upper plate 2 is provided with upper surface patterns "P", bonding patterns "n" and opening holes "h", all of which are shown by solid lines, while pattern surface 3a of the lower plate 3 is provided with lower surface patterns "q" shown by dotted lines and bonding patterns "o" which are respectively placed in positions corresponding to opening holes "h" in upper plate 2. And as shown in FIG. 4, twenty IC chips A₁ to A₂₀ are bonded on pattern surface 2a of the above upper plate 2 in such a manner that the respective sides c, d, e and f of each IC chip are inclined with reference to the direction of arrangement shown by arrow B. Connecting and wiring between the above IC chips will be described in relation to IC chips A₂ and A₃. As shown in FIG. 5, nineteen common connecting terminals provided at side c₂ of IC chip A₂ are each wire-bonded to each of bonding patterns n₂, and one chip enable terminal is bonded via one opening hole h in upper plate 2 to bonding pattern o₂ of lower plate 3. Also, twenty common connecting terminals provided at side d₂ are connected to respective bonding patterns n'₂ each by wire bonding. In a similar manner, as for IC chip A₃, each connecting terminal at side c₃ is wire-bonded to each bonding pattern n₃ and o₃, and each connecting terminal at side d₃ is wire-bonded to each bonding pattern n'₃. As a result, bonding patterns n₂ connected to connecting terminals of IC chip A₂ are connected to bonding patterns n₃ connected to common connecting terminals of IC chip A₃ adjacent to A₂, by means of nineteen upper surface patterns P₁ which pass the lower surface of IC chip A₂ and are led out of side e₂. This side e₂ has no connecting terminal. Also, bonding patterns n'₂ are connected to bonding patterns n'₁ of adjacent IC chip A₁, by means of twenty upper surface patterns P₂ which pass the lower surface of IC chip A₂ and are led out of side f₂ having no common connecting terminal. That is to say, the above-mentioned structure is designed so that connections between many common connecting terminals are made on pattern surface 2a of upper plate 2 to which IC chips A are bonded, and that connecting and wiring of a small number of individual connecting terminals are separately made all over pattern surface 3a of lower plate 3 where no IC chip exists. As a result, this inclined arrangement of IC chips allows the wiring patterns between common connecting terminals to be arranged in a substantially linear shape. Also as for connecting and wiring from the upper surface to the lower surface of the substrate, although the prior art has required a large number of connections and wires, the present invention uses only connections of a small number of individual connecting terminals. Therefore, it is possible to perform a wire bonding by providing opening holes larger than usual without providing through-hole patterns. As mentioned above, in the first embodiment of the present invention, a substrate is made of a lamination of low-cost single-sided print boards, and connections between common connecting terminals which are large in number are made on the upper plate, while individual connecting terminals which are small in number are connected via opening holes to the lower plate. Also, the inclined arrangement of IC chips on the substrate allows connections between common connecting terminals to be made on one surface of the substrate without increasing the space for arrangement of IC chips. Therefore, a memory card having a high packing density can be provided by low-cost single-sided boards. At the same time, eliminating multiterminal through-hole patterns which are apt to cause problems leads to an improvement of reliability. FIG. 7 is a plan view of a second embodiment of a memory card according to the present invention; FIGS. 8 and 9 are sectional views taken along VIII-VIII and IX-IX, respectively of the memory card shown in FIG. 7; FIGS. 10 and 11 are a top plan view and a bottom plan view both of the lower plate of this embodiment; FIG. 12 is a plan view of the upper plate of this embodiment; and FIG. 13 is a plan view of a seal frame. As shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, a substrate 1 which forms a memory card 10, comprises a structure in which an upper plate 2 made of a single-sided print board is laminated on an upper surface of a lower plate 3 made of a conventional double-sided print board. A pattern surface 2a of upper plate 2 is, as shown in FIGS. 7 and 12, provided with lead patterns P₁, bonding patterns n, two elongated opening holes H₁ and H₂ and an elongated opening hole H₃ for connecting leads are provided. Along each of longer sides of two elongated opening holes H₁ and H₂, twenty IC chips B₁ to B₂₀ are arranged. Among the four sides of IC chip square, at one side along each of the longer sides of the elongated opening holes H₁ and H₂ and at a second side which is perpendicular to the above one side, connecting terminals for each IC chip are provided by halves respectively. Also, as shown in FIG. 10, on upper pattern surface 3a of the lower plate 3, lead patterns P₂ and bonding patterns n and connecting electrodes q₁ are provided, and, as shown in FIG. 11, on lower pattern surface 3b of the lower plate 3, lead patterns P₃, individual lead patterns P₄ and connecting electrodes q₂ are provided, and upper pattern surface 3a and lower pattern surface 3b are connected by through-hole patterns m. Next, connecting and wiring between IC chips will be described about IC chips B₁₀, B₁₉ and B₂₀. That is to say, as illustrated by IC chip B₂₀ in FIG. 7, common connecting terminals provided at side C₂₀ perpendicular to the longer sides of the elongated opening hole H₁ is wire-bonded to bonding patterns n₂₀ provided on pattern surface 2a of upper plate 2 and thus connected to bonding patterns n₁₉ of adjacent IC chip B₁₉ and to bonding patterns n₀ for connection between plates by means of lead patterns P₁. By wire-bonding each IC chip to patterns P₁ shown in FIG. 12, the common connecting terminals of all IC chips are connected in common. Furthermore by wire-bonding the bonding patterns n₀ for connection between plates, via elongated opening hole H₃, to the upper pattern surface of the through-hole patterns m₀ provided in lower plate 3, as shown in FIG. 11, the above-mentioned common connecting terminals of all IC chips are connected to connecting electrodes q₂ by means of lead patterns P₃ provided on lower pattern surface 3b. Also, in IC chip B₂₀, the common connecting terminals among connecting terminals provided at its side e₂₀ which is parallel to the longer sides of the elongated opening hole H₁ are wire-bonded, via elongated opening hole H₁, to bonding patterns n₂₀ provided on upper pattern surface 3a of lower plate 3 and thus connected to bonding patterns n₁₀ and n₁₁ for adjacent IC chips B₁₀ and B₁₁ by means of lead patterns P₂ (FIG. 10). And by wire-bonding each IC chip to lead patterns P₂ as shown in FIG. 10, the common connecting terminals of all IC chips are connected in common and at the same time they are connected to connecting electrodes q₁. Also one chip enable terminal of each chip included in the above-mentioned side e₂₀ (FIG. 7) is wire-bonded to the upper pattern surface of through-hole pattern m₂₀ provided in lower plate 3 via elongated opening hole H₁ and thus connected to connecting electrode q₂ by individual lead pattern P₄ provided on lower pattern surface 3b of lower plate 3. As mentioned above, in connection for a board which is packed with many IC chips, by wire-bonding via elongated opening holes, the number of through-hole patterns can be greatly reduced. As a result, the reliability of an IC-packaged device having high packing density can be enhanced and simultaneously wiring freedom on each plate can be increased. When comparing the number of through-hole patterns in the package structure of this embodiment with those in the conventional package structure shown in FIG. 1, for twenty IC chips, the conventional structure requires twenty through-hole patterns per IC chip and thus requires 20 × 20 = 400 through-hole patterns in total, but this embodiment of the present invention requires through-hole patterns for the common connecting terminals, i.e. twenty through-hole patterns m₀ and a through-hole pattern m₁ to m₂₀ for a chip enable terminal necessary for each IC chip and thus requires 20 + 20 = 40 in total, thereby reducing the number of through-hole patterns to 1/10. Thus, packing and connecting of IC chips have been completed. Next, protection will be described for IC chips and wires. As shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, a seal frame 20 (FIG. 13) is set on pattern surface 2a of upper plate 2 and a seal resin 30 (FIGS. 8 and 9) is injected into the inside of seal frame 20, thereby sealing the package portions of IC chips and the wire-bonded portions by resin. FIG. 14 shows another embodiment of the seal frame. By providing a partition frame 40a in the center of the seal frame 40, the seal frame 40 is divided into a plurality of small-area seal frame portions. As a result, the recession in the middle portion of the injected seal resin is reduced, thereby making it possible to improve the effect of protection by seal. In this regard, the partition frame 40a is not limited to the single number. If space of arrangement of IC chips is allowed, partition frames can be provided vertically and horizontally to enhance the effect of protection. As mentioned above, by use of the seal frame enclosing the entire memory card board, the IC chips, bonding wires and wiring patterns are simultaneously sealed by resin. Thus a highly reliable memory card can be provided. Thus the foregoing are the embodiments of the present invention. In either embodiment, the upper plate has only the upper surface wiring patterns (single-sided wiring) and opening holes and does not use a so-called through hole pattern. Also, the lower plate minimizes the number of through hole patterns. Therefore, the present invention provides low-cost but highly reliable and highly densed IC memory cards.

Claims: An IC-memory card comprising: a lower plate (3) having wiring patterns (P2) at least on an upper surface; an upper plate (2) having upper surface wiring patterns (P1), said upper plate (2) being superimposed on said lower plate (3); and a plurality of IC chips (B1-B20) mounted on said upper plate (2), each IC chip having a plurality of connecting terminal groups and a chip enable terminal for selecting the individual IC chips; wherein said upper plate (2) has at least one opening hole (H) therethrough and some of the connecting terminal groups of said plurality of IC chips being wire-bonded to the wiring patterns (P1) on said upper plate, the other of the connecting terminal groups of said plurality of IC chips being connected through the at least one opening hole (H) in said upper plate so as to be wire-bonded directly to the wiring patterns (P2) on said lower plate; wherein said chips are linearly arranged in at least one row, the at least one opening hole (H) in said upper plate (2) is an elongated opening hole having longer sides parallel to the row direction of arrangement of said linearly arranged IC chips, each of said IC chips (B1-B20) has the common connecting terminal groups arranged at a first side (e) parallel to the longer sides of said elongated opening hole and at a second side (c) perpendicular to said first side, respectively, said common connecting terminal group at the second side (c) perpendicular to the longer side of said elongated opening hole being wire-bonded to the wiring patterns (P1) on said upper plate, and said common connecting terminal group at the first side (e) parallel to the longer side of said elongated opening hole being wire-bonded through said elongated opening hole (H) directly to the wiring patterns (P2) on the lower plate. The IC-support device according to claim 1 wherein said IC chip has the chip enable terminal arranged at said first side (e) parallel to the longer side of said elongated opening hole (H), said chip enable terminal being wire-bonded directly to the wiring pattern (P2) on the lower plate through said elongated opening hole (H). The IC-support device according to claim 1 having said plurality of IC chips (B1-B20) arranged in a plurality of rows; comprising accordingly a plurality of generally rectangular opening holes (H1, H2); and the wiring patterns on the upper plate (2) where said IC chip rows are mounted, being arranged generally parallel to the longer sides of the elongated opening holes (H1, H2) so that the wiring patterns extend continuously along the longer sides of said plurality of elongated opening holes. The IC-support device according to claim 3 wherein the wiring patterns (P2) on said lower plate (3) are arranged generally in a direction perpendicular to the wiring patterns (P1) on said upper plate (2). The IC-support device according to claim 1 wherein said upper plate (2) further comprises another opening hole (H3) for directly wire-bonding bonding patterns (nO) of the wiring patterns (P1) on the upper plate (2) to connecting terminals (mO) of the wiring patterns on the lower plate (3). An IC-memory card comprising: a lower plate (3) having wiring patterns (q) at least on an upper surface; an upper plate (2) having upper surface wiring patterns (P), said upper plate (2) being superimposed on said lower plate (3); and a plurality of IC chips (A1-A20) mounted on said upper plate (2) and being linearly arranged in at least one row; wherein an opening hole (h) through said upper plate (2) is provided in a corresponding position to each IC chip on said upper plate (2); each of said IC chips (A1-A20) is substantially square-shaped, has one common connecting terminal group and a chip enable terminal at a first side (c) of the four sides of the square and has another common connecting terminal group at a second side (d) opposite to said first side; the wiring patterns on said upper plate comprises two sets of wiring patterns (P1, P2) provided parallel to the row direction; the sides of said IC chips (A1-A20) are arranged inclinedly with reference to the row direction; the first side (c) of each said IC chip and a third side (e) which is adjacent to the first side and which has no connecting terminal are superimposed on one set (P1) of the two sets of wiring patterns on said upper plate; and the second side (d) of said IC chip and a fourth side (f) which is adjacent to the second side and has no connecting terminal are superimposed on the other set (P2) of the two sets of wiring patterns on said upper plate; and wherein said one common connecting terminal group at the first side of said IC chip and the other common connecting terminal group at the second side opposite to the first side are wire-bonded to said two sets of wiring patterns (P1, P2) on the upper plate respectively, and each of said IC chip enable terminals is wire-bonded through a respective one of said opening holes (h) directly to each of the wiring patterns (q) on the lower plate (3). The IC-support device according to claim 1 or 6 wherein on the upper plate a seal frame (20) is provided for enclosing said plurality of IC chips, and a resin (30) is injected inside said seal frame.

Inventors: ICHIKAWA, SHINGO, IINUMA, YOSHIO, ISHIDA, YOSHIHIRO
Applicants: CITIZEN WATCH CO. LTD.
Application year: 1988
Main classification: H01L23
IPC codes: H01L23