Manufacturing process for a super-digital (SD) flash card with slanted asymmetric circuit board

A method for manufacturing a slanted flash-memory device comprising:

• forming contact pads on an upper surface of a printed-circuit board (PCB);
• forming a PCB assembly by soldering a flash-memory chip onto a lower surface of the PCB and soldering a controller chip to the lower surface of the PCB;
• wherein the contact pads are for carrying signals from an external computer to the controller chip to instruct the controller chip to read blocks of data from the flash-memory chip;
• forming an upper case by molding plastic;
• forming ultrasonic ridges on the upper case when forming the upper case;
• forming a lower case by molding plastic, the lower case having an outside surface as a largest external surface of the lower case;
• forming a rim on the lower case when forming the lower case;
• forming supporting dividers on the upper case when forming the upper case, the supporting dividers for supporting the PCB assembly at a slanted angle within the upper case wherein the upper and lower surfaces of the PCB are not parallel with the outside surface of the lower case when assembled;
• fitting the PCB assembly into the upper case to form a sub-assembly of the PCB assembly and the upper case;
• aligning the upper case to the lower case until the ultrasonic ridges touch the rim of the lower case;
• pressing the upper case into the lower case while applying ultrasonic energy to ultrasonically bond the upper case to the lower case through the ultrasonic ridges;
• wherein the upper and lower surfaces of the PCB are not parallel with the outside surface of the lower case;
• whereby the PCB assembly is at the slanted angle within the lower case when the slanted flash-memory device is assembled using an ultrasonic bonding process.

A portable flash-memory device comprising:

• upper case means for partially encasing the portable flash-memory device;
• lower case means for partially encasing the portable flash-memory device;
• a printed-circuit board assembly (PCBA) that comprises:
• circuit board means for connecting chips with wiring traces;
• flash-memory chip means for storing blocks of data, the flash-memory chip means being mounted to a first surface of the circuit board means, wherein the flash-memory chip means are block-addressable and not randomly-addressable;
• controller chip means, mounted to the first surface of the circuit board means, for controlling access to the flash-memory chip means, the controller chip means comprising an input/output interface means for interfacing to an external computer, and processing unit means for accessing the flash-memory chip means in response to commands from the external computer received by the input/output interface means;
• contact pad means, formed on a second surface of the circuit board means, for connecting the controller chip means to the external computer;
• and
• slant means, formed on the upper case means, for supporting the circuit board means at a slanted angle to a centerline between the lower case means and the upper case means, wherein the circuit board means is slanted and not parallel to the centerline;
• wherein the upper case means is attached to the lower case means during assembly with the PCBA between the upper case means and the lower case means, with the contact pad means passing through a plurality of openings in the upper case means.