The day after I wrote my last editorial entitled Nano-inspiration, I attended the MEMS and Nanotechnology session at the IMAPS New England Symposium, May 16, in Boxborough, MA. There was so much discussion about nano-hype, multiple definitions of nano, how nanomaterials are made, and what you can do with them that I wished the session had occurred a few days earlier. Then I received a letter to the editor on the topic, which you’ll read in this issue of AP Semi-monthly, and decided that more needed to be said.
(June 6, 2006) SAN JOSE, CA — If you’re like most people who responded to SEMI’s survey on MEMS packaging standards, you’re not aware that SEMI has published three MEMS-related standards. Existing standards cover microscale fluidic systems, terminology, and wafer bonding. SEMI’s MEMS technical committee has identified MEMS packaging as a task force area, and standardization efforts are just beginning. Survey respondents listed cost, reliability, hermeticity, and standardization as top challenges in MEMS packaging. They rated hermeticity, reliability, external connections and package dimensions, and material specifications as areas most in need of standardization.