European Activities & Calendar of Events
UK:
Meetings Programme:
- MicroTech 2001 – The IMAPS-UK Flagship Conference and Exhibition
To be held at the Novotel London 29, 30, 31 January 2001
Plans for the resurrected Microtech conference and exhibition to be held at the Novotel, Hammersmith, between the 28th and 31st January 2001 are well in hand with a brochure now available. The conference subjects are Advanced Packaging, MicroSystems 2001 and Wireless Technologies.
- In March there will be a Workshop event probably including the topics of COTS and the Growth of Photonics and there will be a meeting on passive components in the Autumn. It is also possible that a joint meeting with SMART will be arranged on Advanced Manufacturing.
- For full details of Membership and Future events, contact the IMAPS-UK Secretariat at IMAPS-UK, Ms. Silvia Outteridge, 63 Coachmans Lane, Baldock, Herts, SG7 5BG, Tel: +44 (0) 1462 896733, Fax :+44 (0) 1462 896567, email: office@imaps.org.uk
Web site: http://www.imaps.org.uk/imaps/events.htm
News from the Chapter:
OPTO -HYBRID MICROELECTRONICS
More than 60 delegates assembled at the Institute of Physics, London, to hear a very interesting programme of papers from well informed speakers. The event, which was accompanied by a table top exhibition from 10 companies, addressed this very exciting and fast growing industry giving an insight into what seemed to be an industry in its infancy and with apparently huge potential for growth on the basis that light offered the greatest speeds for connection be it at the component or national network levels.
The keynote address was given by Timothy Wilkinson of Cambridge University was entitled “From electrons to photons; The role of optical interconnects” which aptly compared the options using the electrical models of the two interconnect systems laid out as tracks on a VLSI substrate. Interconnect evaluation was in that case possible by comparing rise time (speed) and switching energy. Optoelectronic packaging was then tackled by Edward Palen of Teledyne Optoelectronics stressing the criticality of maintaining optical alignment which put constraints on the package options available. Laser mounts had to be securely mounted into rigid base packages. The storage testing of 2000 hours and accelerated aging of 5000 hours were challenges in themselves and the high level of future integration put further strains on reliability. Vivek Tandon of Kymata first introduced his company which although only two years old is now established in a 100,000 sq. ft. factory and has much of its design strategy based on Silica on Silicon. Some of the current problems were explained including the poor yields on manually glued thin film filters but an overall picture of positive growth was presented particularly in the area of DWDMs and thermo-optic switches.
John Furguson of Photonics and Analytical Marketing in his paper “Miniature Solid State Spectrometers” gave us an insight into the origins of optoelectronic usage via the age-old use of prisms and how they had been replaced by visible wavelength spectrometers. Thor Erik Hansen of AME gave a very comprehensive overview of the existing and potential applications for Opto-Hybrid circuits suggesting that use could often be made of standard or slightly modified bipolar or CMOS processes to realise silicon detectors, self scanning arrays and imaging sensors with on-chip electronic functions. The papers from Mark Owen at Agilent and Jon Hall of Marconi, Caswell, addressed the need for increasing the density of components to meet some of the emerging requirements and Steve Riches of MCE, Newmarket, even as last speaker kept the interest alive as he talked about the practicalities of opto-electronic packaging stressing the needs for alignment, substrate selection, thermal management and sealing.
Overall it was a very useful meeting with exhibitors reporting positive interest from visitors. Everybody talked about growth and the problems of addressing the increased production demands, a healthy situation and one in which IMAPS has an important role.
BCW
Business Trade/Industry News:
The European Market for Hybrid Circuits and Multichip Modules.
Index Management Services Ltd. - Europe (published in September 2000) is offering this comprehensive report for £2750/$3995 which suggests that the European market totals 1.1 billion EUR with OEMs driving a trend towards in-house board assembly and ASICs to reduce cost. This 360-page report suggests that the less than 10% growth in the market over the last 5 years by entering new markets could rise to 30% of the total merchant market. Other findings included are that end users consider LTCC to be too costly and that the successful suppliers to the Hybrid Circuit and MCM market will be those which produce not only the hybrid circuit part of a design but also utilise PCB technology and mechanical assembly capabilities to supply fully tested and qualified systems.
For further information on the report ring +44 (0)1933 402255
Much Activity in an Active Market
There seems to be no let-up in the activity of the market these days with new technology, more start-ups, additional acquisitions and of course the continuing search for engineers to do all the work. The Electronics Forum 2000 had this topic high on its agenda and it was generally agreed that whilst there may be mature engineers available, today’s requirement for younger men was to meet the need of international operations where to be without ties was a distinct advantage. One way of addressing the problem was the announcement by ARM that it would be subsidising 20 places on a MEng degree at Loughborough University. Another approach is to combine degree courses with in-company training now offered by a number of companies in the sector. The need to provide trained personnel in areas close to major microelectronic producers has been recognised by North Tyneside College which was set up in response to the establishment of the now closed Siemens fab plant in the area.
The Tyneside plant bought from Siemens by Amtel is now setting up a medium level technology line and also in the area Filtronic has Gallium Arsenide production going.
One way of tackling the problem of chip shortage and the time taken to obtain quotes is Agile Software’s system for pooling the resources of the supply chain reducing quotation times from weeks to hours. A recent report by Future Horizons claims that UK-based independent IC design houses scooped 48.5% of the $691bn revenues earned by 181 such establishments in Europe. £20 million is to be spent by NEC on re-establishing its recently closed fab now to be used to make low power SRAM and microcontrollers with embedded E2PROM.
Scotland is making news with its establishments of activity cells which are attracting start-ups and established companies alike,, the most recent of which is the Microelectronics Centre near Edinburgh opened by the Duke of Edinburgh.
Finally the optoelectronic market continues its expansion. Bookham having recently raised over £99 million with a share offering, Agilent ploughing $20 million into its research and manufacturing facility in Ipswich and joining the Welsh Innovation Village project in Swansea. The young company Kymata which has just raised a further £46 million may take on technology from IBM Microelectronics. The likelihood of transmission speeds rising four times to 40Gbit/s must surely ensure we shall be seeing this sector of the industry in the news for some time to come.
BCW
France:
Meetings Programme:
- 13th European Microelectronics and Packaging Conference
IMAPS-France will host the next European Microelectronics and Packaging Conference & Exhibition. It will take place in Strasbourg, May 30-June 1st, 2001. Strasbourg has a very attractive location, very close to Switzerland and Germany, placed in the Alsace wine district. Strasbourg has excellent restaurants and hotels and you can enjoy the picturesque scenery not only in the city but also in the surroundings.
The Technical Programme committee has just finished the voting for the technical papers, and we can promise you again a most technically rewarding event.
Please plan now to be there. Soon you will receive more info directly from the organisers.
Access is very easy, you can fly directly to Strasbourg from several European hubs.
Please notice the Exhibition info and the general Strasbourg flyer in AM.
Email: imaps.france@wanadoo.fr
Web: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/imaps.france/
- EuroSimE 2001 Call for Papers
Europe SimE 2000 was initiated by COMPETE with major sponsorship from the European Community. EuroSimE is also co-sponsored by IMAPS.
EuroSimE 2001 aims to:
- promote further development and application of simulation methodologies and tools for the electronics industry
- improve communication and exchange information between methodology and tool developers and industry users
- strengthen co-operation between industry, universities, and research institutes
EuroSimE takes place April 9-11, 2001, Paris, France
More details: Mr. Olivier de Saint Leger, email: compete@mta.fr
Italy:
Meetings Programme:
IMAPS-ITALY is pursuing its “Continuing Education” activity as one of the most important and mandatory missions of the Chapter: With our focus on the domestic microelectronic market reality and demands, we announce a new 3-day course titled “Evolution of the Technologies, Assembling Processes and Testing of Electronic Systems,” to be held around Easter 2001.
The programme is as follows:
1st day: “Interconnection and Packaging Technologies”
- Market trend
- High Density Packaging
- Packaging for High Frequency Applications
2nd day: “Electronic Components”
- Printed Circuit Boards
- Ceramic and Organic Substrates
- Optical Components and Fibre Optics
- Flip Chip, C4, MCM, BGA and CSP
3rd day: “Assembling Processes and Testing of Electronic Systems”
- Materials and Lead-free Soldering Alloys
- Assembling Processes
- Soldering Processes
- Testing Methodologies
- Quality Management
The course is addressed to new process and/or production engineers who are either starting their activity in the field of microelectronics and interconnect technologies, or need technical information about it.
The course will be held by expert engineers from the most prominent Italian and International Companies and Universities.
For more information, call:
IMAPS-ITALY - D.ssa L. Guizzetti
P.O. Box 210 - 27100 Pavia
Tel. +39 0382 302859 - Fax +39 0382 27697
e-mail: pragmapv@tin.it
www.ishm-imaps.it
News from the Chapter:
- Packaging and Interconnect Technologies
As announced in the previous issue of this magazine, the “Packaging and Interconnect Technologies” tutorial has been held at the DuPont Italiana premises in Cologno Monzese (Milan) on October 25th through 27th, 2000. We wish to thank very much the responsible DuPont people for their helpfulness and efficiency in organising the event.
This has been the first Italian Chapter’s technical meeting scheduled in 2000; more than 30 Engineers from the most important Italian electronic companies have attended the 3-day course, showing great interest in the lectures and livening up with very thorough discussions.
The event is the continuation of the successful series of technical courses held in Italy to stimulate domestic educational activities and spreading know-how in rapidly changing areas of microelectronics, such as MCM, CSP, High I/O, design rules, integrated passive components, SMTs, state of the art in terms of processes, productivity, quality and testing.
Topics covered design, technologies and implementation methodologies for first and second level packaging, advanced PCBs, SMT technology and Testing.
Three separate volumes of proceedings, one for each day of the course, have been put together as the result of the event, and have been welcomed and very much appreciated from the attendees.
Following topics were addressed:
“Technology and Market trend”
“Roadmap High I/O”
“Packaging Technologies”
“Design Rules- System and MCM designing”
“New testing methodologies”
“PWB Technologies”
“Flip Chip”
“C4: technology and reliability”
“Organic Materials for attaching”
Nordic:
Meetings Programme:
- IMAPS-Nordic 38th Annual Conference
Next year’s conference will take place at Olavsgaard Hotel, Norway, September 23-26, 2001.
More info can be found on the web: www.imapsnordic.a.se
Business Trade/Industry News:
Ericsson, announced the following in October, 2000: Ericsson has signed a letter of intent to sell its Technology Center for PCB in Kumla, Sweden, to Multek Inc. (subsidiary of Flextronics).
It involves 300 employees for development of technology and production.
EricssonMobile — The production of mobile phones will stop in Kumla and most likely also at other Ericsson Sweden plants. It has been decided to produce phones at other sites, in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America.
Most likely Ericsson will now concentrate on outsourcing its phone manufacturing. Ericsson has previously outsourced development and production of a low cost phone product to Arima, Taiwan.
Germany:
Business Trade/Industry News:
Siemens and Sanmina informed that Sanmina has invested 49.9% in the Siemens-owned INBOARD.
INBOARD with 360 employees is the world’s only provider of SIMOV printed circuit boards. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siemens Automation & Drives. Located in Karlsruhe, Germany. The SIMOV technology is strong in high density, laser micro-via, and buried resistors.
Poland:
Meetings Programme:
- IMAPS-Poland 25th Annual Conference
The 25th IMAPS-Poland Conference will be held in Polanczyk near Rzeszow, on September 26-29th, 2001. The Conference will be organized by Technical University of Rzeszow.
Further information about the Conference is available from the Committee Chairman professor Jerzy Potencki, Technical University of Rzeszow, ul. Wincentego Pola 2, 35-959 Rzeszow, Poland,
phone: +48 (0) 17 85-44-708; fax: +48 (0) 17 85-42-088, e-mail: jurpot@prz.rzeszow.pl
News from the Chapter:
- IMAPS-Poland 24th Conference
The 24th IMAPS-Poland Conference was held in Rytro on September 25-29, 2000. Rytro is a beautiful mountain resort (see the picture). It was organised by the Research and Development Centre for Hybrid Microelectronics and Resistors and sponsored by the Polish Research Committee. Over eighty participants from Poland and other countries like Great Britain, Slovenia, France, USA, Germany, Czech Republic and Ukraine attended the Conference. Twelve invited papers and forty-five posters were presented covering the following topics:
- physics and semiconductors materials,
- technologies,
- sensors,
- materials,
- thermal effects,
- passive components,
- circuits
The Programme Committee awarded the following posters:
A. Dziedzic, L. Golonka, J. Kita, J. Koz_owski, Macro- and Microstructure of LTCC Tapes and Components,
W. Sabat, W. Kalita, B. Wisz, D. Sperling, EMC Aspects in Design Thick-Film Wide-Band Amplifier of Small Signals,
A. Ko_odziej, P. Krewniak, S. Nowak, Consideration on Wide Bandgap Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon for Solar Multi-junction Cell and X-ray Sensor.
Two pictures from the IMAPS-Poland event show the conference venue environment and a group of Conference attendees after the closure ceremony.
- Steering Committee for IMAPS Symposium Cracow 2002
The General Assembly of IMAPS Poland gathered on September 29th, 2000. One of the main topics of the meeting was the organisation of the European IMAPS Symposium Cracow 2002. The General Assembly approved the Steering Committee of the Symposium:
Selim Achmatowicz – Chairman
Micha_ Cie_ – Co-Chairman
Ma_gorzata Jakubowska – Secretary
Barbara Dziurdzia- Treasurer
Leszek Golonka – TPC representative
Wies_aw Zaraska - Member
Ryszard Kisiel - Member
- The ELC Meeting in Cracow on October 27-29th, 2000
The meeting was organised by the IMAPS-Poland Chapter. One of the important objects of the meeting was to inspect the Conference Centre at the Forum Hotel, which was chosen by the Steering Committee as the Conference site for the European IMAPS Symposium, Cracow 2002. The ELC meeting found the venue suitable for the planned event June 16 -18, 2002. Cracow, the old capital of Poland, is an ancient city of culture equally attrative as Prague!
Romania:
News from the Chapter:
SIITME forum, the International Symposium for Design and Technology of Electronic Modules, organized yearly with the support of ANSTI (Romanian National Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation), IEEE-Romania and IMAPS, was created to emphasize the exchange of knowledge in research, design and manufacturing of electronic packages and assemblies.
As usually, the event was organized by “Politehnica” University of Bucharest, Center of Technological Electronics and Interconnection Techniques (CETTI) and Research Institute for Hydraulics and Pneumatics (IHP).
The main purpose of the Symposium is to promote the exchange of knowledge in research, design and manufacturing of electronic packages and assemblies (CAE-CAD-CAM, design & engineering and computer-aided manufacturing and high level technological information).
The big importance of it is that it keeps active the transfer channel of research results to industry in a difficult period in which most companies from this part of Europe are focused only on the near future profits and surviving.
As much remarkable is that, due to the international participation, the symposium keeps up the scientific level around the countries with interest and achievements in design and technology oriented to the electronics industry. It was a great honour for the organizers to observe that SIITME was mentioned in the 2000 IMAPS calendar.
The manifestation was opened by the rector of “Politehnica” University of Bucharest, Prof. Ioan Dumitrache, Ph.D., who has underlined the importance of such an event for Romania and Central Europe. The following invited persons started the conference with short presentations: the president of ANSTI, through his counselor Prof. Victor Croitoru, Ph.D. and ANCI president, Prof. Sergiu Stelian Iliescu, Ph.D. It was said that nowadays is a difficult period in which scientific research in academia and companies from production area has not the necessary support. In this context, it was given a special appreciation to SIITME 2000 and was remarked the special efforts of “Politehnica” University of Bucharest and CETTI to implement new strategies of development-research in universities from Romania and to raise the competitiveness of electronic products and technological transfer of modern scientific ideas, to assure the forming and development of internal and international networks of spreading the information in scientific, technological, management and market fields.
At the manifestation researchers and specialists from research institutes (ITA, ICPE, ACTTM, etc.) as well as from universities from Baia Mare, Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi, Pitesti and Timisoara, were present. Next to the Romanian participants, specialists and professors from academia, applied research and production from Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Moldova Republic and Hungary have participated, too.
The Symposium was a debate place for different aspects linked to technological transfer in research, development and fabrication of electronic modules. It has contained six oral sections, two poster sessions and two panel discussions, where there were presented 58 scientific papers and contributions in the field of electronic packaging, CAE-CAD-CAM in electronics, simulation, electromagnetic compatibility, signal integrity analysis, quality and thermal management, reliability, concurrent engineering and mechatronics. It has to be mentioned that the “Technological transfer, networking” Round Table (panel discussion 1) of Saturday, September 23, had as moderator the rector, Prof. Ioan Dumitrache, Ph.D. and the Panel Discussion 2, called “Continuing Education, Distance and Open Learning” had as moderator the vice-dean of Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications, Prof. Teodor Petrescu, Ph.D.
The honorary chairman of the symposium was Prof. Vasile Catuneanu, Ph.D., first rank personality of Romanian scientific life, the promoter of electronics technology and reliability in Romania. At 82 years old, Prof. Catuneanu impressed the audience with his young and contemporary ideas.
Two evaluation commissions, containing personalities from universities, research and production, studied the papers offered during the symposium. For the most significant contributions prizes and diplomas on behalf of ANSTI and organizers were offered. e are happy to report the fact that there were presented papers by a significant number of young scientists. With the symposium occasion a Proceedings with papers presented during all sessions was printed. The Proceedings can still be obtained from CETTI (noroc@cadtieccp.pub.ro).
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