34. Miniaturizing an electronic circuit

1. Miniaturizing a circuit

Currently there are many equipment with large sizes in the market having similar functionality. For example, Windows laptop and Windows phone use the same operating system, but the hardware, circuit board, and chips on a phone are smaller in size.

If we could take a photograph of a larger electronic circuit with ID of those electronic chips, and then use database to search for smaller alternative circuits/chips, the miniaturizing task would be easier.

If a chip came with firmware, the smaller circuit should also support functionality in the firmware. 

The operating system is more complex, but it seems to me that Windows OS is the same for both Windows laptop and Windows mobile phone.

2. Building a huge database

This could be done by creating a huge database for

-         ID of smaller chips comparable with larger chips. For example, Intel has made many larger chips (less expensive) for laptop and equivalent smaller chips (expensive) for a mobile phone. Those equivalent chips are saved in database.

-         Smaller alternative circuit equivalent to a larger circuit. In this case, hardware designers have to come up with designs for possible equivalent circuit. Those alternative designs would be saved in database.

-         Usually smaller printed circuit would be less resistance, capacitance, or inductance. System would suggest the additional resistors, inductors, or capacitors appropriately for a smaller circuit board.

The issue would be building a database. The hard part would be design of alternative circuits, and try to match the alternative circuit with other parts of a system. For example, 

-         An equivalent smaller microprocessor may have 10 pins, but the larger microprocessor has 20 pins.

-         The data bus would be different between 2 printed circuits

-         The hard drive may be different in number of pins for both circuits

-         Etc.

The alternative design would consider those facts and propose a design to cover the above scenario, i.e. matching printed circuit or coming up with additional components to bridge the difference.