June 30, 2011 — SEMICON West, held every July in San Francisco, is a major tradeshow and conference for semiconductor manufacturing professionals. Semiconductor packaging has become a major focus in recent years, and this year, BEOL attendees can go to the head of the line for ATE Vision 2020, 3D IC standards meetings, a keynote, and multiple sessions dedicated to packaging technologies. Here’s your guide to attending SEMICON West on a packaging track.

SEMI highlights a couple sessions that attendees won’t want to miss (schedule details below): 3D in the Deep Submicron Era, Contemporary Packaging: Challenges and Solutions for 40nm and Beyond, and Heterogeneous Integration with MEMS and Sensors. The 3D session will look at dramatic developments in IC packaging — through silicon vias (TSVs) and stacked dies, and silicon interposer (2.5D) technology based upon TSVs. The session will cover design standards, test platforms, and roadmaps that link the strategies of memory, MPU, GPU and other chip manufacturers including foundries and packaging firms.

While these are exciting developments, a majority of today