The Prospects of Using Silicon Carbide as a Circuit Board Material

–– Modern electronic design is constrained by the ability to package working computational systems. The packaging, which includes chip packaging, circuit boards, mounting, and ancillary support (such as heat dissipation), often constrains high–end design and imposes artificial limits on performance. After examining the " ideal " circuit board material it becomes apparent that silicon carbide offers many advantages. It is an excellent conductor of heat, conductors can be patterned using optical photolithography, it is transparent to optical light frequencies, and it is fundamentally amenable to active circuit board technology. This paper surveys existing circuit board technologies, explains the rationale for researching silicon carbide, outlines some advanced architectures that are enabled by it, and explains the contributing technologies that need to be explored for silicon carbide to become commercially viable.