[Cryptech Tech] PCB prototyping machine [Was: BCP prototyping machine]

[Fredrik Thulin]

(Pavel, I'm sorry but I've been missing a lot of your e-mails it seems - 
they've ended up in my spam filter :(. You send HTML mail, maybe you can 
disable that? I think it contributes a lot to the SPAM scores my mail server 
has been giving your e-mails).

On Saturday, February 21, 2015 12:09:28 AM Шатов Павел wrote:
> 20.02.2015, 21:11, "Benedikt Stockebrand" <bs at stepladder-it.com>:
> Hi Pavel and list,
> 
> Шатов Павел <meisterpaul1 at yandex.ru> writes:
> 
>  Guys, I believe that you underestimate complexity of a board that we
>  are going to produce. BGA packages were not designed to be soldered by
>  hand[...]
...
> So you want to buy something like this for our FPGA:
> http://www.proto-advantage.com/store/images/PRODUCTS/BGA0006_0.JPG
>  
> then buy another breakout board for the CPU and then etch a kind of a
> 2-layer interposer to connect them? Do I get it right? 

I think maybe you got carried away by my comment to Randy when we talked about 
the PCB making machine here? It was purely hypothetical - I was trying to say 
that *if* we all had these machines we might have taken a different, more 
modular, route with the Alpha board to have the really complex parts designed 
and manufactured by professionals, and more expansion-slot like peripherals 
for e.g. the avalanche noise part that we could make ourselves.

To hopefully make you a bit more comfortable, I would expect the Alpha board 
to be of the same order of complexity (number of PCB layers etc.) as (the 
relevant part of) the Novena board. I promise you I fully appreciate the 
difficulties of soldering BGAs, and won't even try it myself =).

My hopes are that we will find someone (Randy says in eastern Asia) that we can 
send something more detailed than https://trac.cryptech.is/wiki/Hardware but 
less detailed than a complete schematic, and get a schematic + PCB board 
design back. I think you said in an e-mail yesterday that you could help with 
validating that schematic, and that would be very appreciated.

Then, we would have a PCB assembly house mount at least the CPU and FPGA on 
the boards, but probably all of the components while we're at it. If needed, I 
think I know a company in Sweden to do this part.

/Fredrik