Ah, it's great to be back with colleagues who are committed to covering advanced assembly and packaging issues, including the high-density interconnect (HDI) critters I have come to know so well. With an unpredictable global economy, some ventures survive, while others do not. For the latter, we move on, and so here I am. Chip Scale Review is a well-respected publication and a tough competitor, as I found out over the past four years. It is also nimble, unencumbered by a large bureaucracy and quick to cover what is most important to the industry. Timeliness and flexibility are significant values that a publication such as CSR provides to its readers and supporters. In every issue from now on, you will see some of my observations in this column. I'll talk about the fast-changing optoelectronics packaging industry-or something related to it that will directly impact you. I'll also be writing articles for each issue, and you'll see me at industry conferences and trade shows. The Future of 'Snail Mail' With the anthrax scare and other bio-terrorism threats, the future of "snail mail" may be doomed. It's not that mail was thriving, anyway. E-mail and express delivery services, ‡ la FedEx, have cut into the U.S.P.S.'s business, hence the ongoing postage increases. Not only is e-mail usually much faster, and typically as reliable as regular mail, it is much cheaper, too, since most of us are already using computers. So what does e-mail have to do with IC packaging? Open your modem, be it 56Kbps, DSL, PDA, satellite or cable (which would most likely void the warranty but it is fun to open them up) and you'll see a lot of parts on a PWB.
More parts equals higher cost. Why not cut the parts count with CSPs? Consider the System-on-a-Chip (SoC), since embedded modems are very high-volume products. If your SoC is the least expensive one out there, and one that offers built-in reprogrammability, you might capture the lion's share of the market. You could also employ the SoC for core functionality in a System-in-Package (SiP) to add flexibility. The CSP SoC/SiP uses less space, and modems, computers or other Internet appliances with built-in modems keep getting smaller. How big is the market for small, powerful chips? Potentially enormous, especially when you add other enabling, complementary optoelectronic devices in chip form. MEMS/MOEMS Going Mainstream The packaging of photonic (optoelectronic) devices, light emitters and optical detector arrays finally moved into modest production by early 2001. Mechanical MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) and MOEMS (micro-optical electromechanical systems) including switchable mirror arrays are part of the opto solution. MEMS have quietly entered other markets of interest for those that package ICs. For example, Texas Instruments makes Digital Micro Mirrors (DMMs) for entertainment and business video projection systems. Although DMMs switch light beams to form high-definition TV images, small mirrors have other uses, including switching laser beams. Some MEMSwill switch RF too. We're really talking about functional integration with ICs, since photonic and mechanical devices are used to add capabilities that just aren't possible with microelectronic devices. Why are these photonic and mechanical chips so significant?-bandwidth, both wired and wireless, that's why! Still, the existing global fiber-optic infrastructure is far from complete, because "last-mile" hookups and various RF systems possess practical limits. These new opto devices need IC-like packaging technologies. The added functionality they bring will greatly enhance microelectronics for everyone.
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