Circuit boards with reconfigurable liquid metal traces for development

The start-up company Itera is announcing circuit boards whose traces are made of liquid metal. The shape of the traces can be changed in a fine grid using electrowetting; this is said to take less than a minute. This allows developers to quickly change the interconnection of the components and connections attached to the board.

Because Itera circuit boards allow changes to the wiring of components without mechanical intervention, they are expected to significantly accelerate the development of physical circuits.

So far, the Itera website reveals few details. However, the US company promises that multi-layer boards with through-connections are also feasible.

Electrowetting refers to the physical phenomenon that an electric field influences the surface tension of some liquids. Depending on the electric field strength, this liquid then wets different areas of a surface.

Several research papers have investigated electrowetting with liquid metals in recent years. This included, among other things, gallium compounds, which are also used for heat transfer between processors and heat sinks.

Alternative Micro-Relays

An equally innovative alternative for switching connections has been developed by the company Menlomicro as the “Ideal Switch.” These are relays in chip form that contain very many tiny switching contacts internally. Menlomicro offers different variants, for example, for switching relatively high currents or signals with high frequencies.

(ciw)