An Independent Journal Dedicated to the Advancement of Chip - Scale Electronics January - February 2000 Email the editor

The "Ultimate Design Goal" May Never Be Realized

Advanced packaging will be affected by three areas of consideration.

Business: In the next century communication will remain the application. The volume and speed of business transactions (and forms of communications) will continue to expand exponentially, supported by cost reductions, to improve overall ease of use and total number of connected devices.

Environmental issues: The demand for greener products will be supported by new technologies, allowing us to continue the pursuit of our environmental goals.

Speed: Time-to-market will evolve into a concept that we may not be able to understand today. Accelerating technologies will enable products to be developed and released so quickly that release rates may exceed people's abilities to integrate them.

Micro-revisions of products will be available at all times, allowing consumers to buy-in to a new revision nearly every day. The "ultimate design goal" may never be realized as the product evolves in constantly changing directions. The time between a product introduction and the market's adoption will be greatly shortened. The total demand for any product might be much lower, since the next version, or totally different replacement, will be available very quickly. Package design criteria will have to adjust.

Technology: It will be materials versus processes that revolutionize packaging in the next century. New materials are necessary to address the demand for miniaturization. New processes are necessary to address the demand for "greener" products.

Today we have the recyclable automobile. Tomorrow we will have the water-soluble wrist PC.

The relentless demand for speed and miniaturization will require us to master optical interconnects, micro-machines and build-up technologies within our electronic devices. Miniaturization will allow us to create implantable devices that function within, versus on, our bodies. These devices could take the form of "machines" that perform a simple function, as well as "bioelectronic" units which become a part of our body.

We will see accelerated technology convergence, for example of computers (massive data analysis), with novel and powerful devices (such as micro- machines), with seemingly unrelated discoveries (such as the Human Genome project), which creates opportunities to profoundly change not only what we can do, but even the reasons why we do it.

Chip-Scale/Advanced Packaging. I believe that two factors will influence the evolution of advanced packaging. first is packaging technology itself, and second is what we demand from our packages. These factors will drive each other.

For example, a device implanted into a person's vascular system will be required to function while exposed to blood.

All the traditional product drivers: Size, speed and cost will continue to rule the day well into the next century.ÑGreg Evans, President, Indium Corp. of America

Indium Corporation of America, Clinton, N.Y., is a developer, manufacturer and supplier of electronic assembly materials, including solder pastes, fluxes, spheres, preforms and electrically-conductive adhesives. Founded in 1934, ICA also maintains regional operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia.[indium.com]