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We take great pleasure this year in celebrating the 10th anniversary of Advanced Packaging. Yes, it was way back in 1992 when AP hit the streets. As a packaging engineer at the time, I remember being happy to see a magazine devoted exclusively to packaging. I would no longer have to scrounge through the more general industry publications for snippets of packaging information.
A lot has happened to advanced packaging technology in 10 years, but a glance through our first issue shows some striking similarities to the hot issues today. Feature article topics included CAD tools for packaging design, thermal management, ceramic substrates and thin-film MCMs. The lesson is that the types of challenges faced in the packaging world – design, thermal issues, materials, integration – have not gone away, nor will they. The silicon manufacturers and product OEMs have been raising the bar for the packaging world, but it is still the same bar to hurdle. (My premise can be extended back significantly further in history. Articles in the issue of Solid State Technology published the month I was born included gallium arsenide lasers and thermal resistance measurements, which are still very important topics.)
Our coverage in the next 10 years will show a broadened scope as the package engineering community derives increasingly diverse technologies to address the evolving requirements, but the fundamental drivers of performance, cost and density will still be there. We can take comfort in these “constants,” even if their rate of change makes us uneasy as things move ahead faster than we can comprehend sometimes. That's why Advanced Packaging is here, though, to help our collective comprehension.
As part of our celebration in 2002, we are introducing a new series of monthly columns with a look back to the state of affairs 10 years ago in a particular part of the industry, and a look ahead to see how the path might continue into the future. Written by prominent industry figures, the columns should have some excellent insight into our history and future. The series is very ably inaugurated by Prof. Ajay Malshe of the University of Arkansas, who takes a look at the emergence of packaging as a critical part of the semiconductor industry rather than just an afterthought. That's a great way to start a new decade of covering the packaging industry.
AP
Thanks for reading,
Jeffrey C. Demmin
Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]