Chip Packaging (was Happy Birthday VAX)

Mitsubishi had some large-scale(for the time) ICs packaged as flatpack ceramic packages with 48 pins at a pitch smaller than 0.1" back in 1970/1971 timeframe. The chipset was used in calculators, specifically the Denon DEC-311 (an unusual calculator that didn't support division), as the MA8011/8012/8013. The socketing for the chips was quite unusual. As mentioned by an earlier poster, the Japanese did seem to have an advantage in higher-density packaging over the US and others for a period of time in the 1970's. http://oldcalculatormuseum.com/denon311.html Earlier yet, in 1965-ish timeframe, General Micro-Electronics built a large-scale chipset for Victor's 3900 calculator that utilized round ceramic flat-pack devices with 22 leads. Not quite at the level of a 68000 in terms of pincount, but still pretty amazing for the time. Getting the packaging right was a huge undertaking at that time. http://pail.bensene.com/d-victor3900.html (a draft, not yet completed). Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com