Dr. Phil Garrou gives his insight into leading edge developments in 3-D integration and advanced packaging, reporting the latest technical goings on from conferences, conversations, and more.

This week, I’d like to give you the IFTLE historical perspective on the two major name changes of our key International Microelecronic Packaging & Interconnect Societies. One occurred 20 years ago and one that is occurring as we speak.

So as Paul Harvey would say …here is the rest of the story …

Paul Harvey “The Rest of the Story” was a radio program that originated during the WW2 and later as a radio series on the ABC radio networks . The Rest of the Story consisted of stories of little-known or forgotten facts on a variety of subjects. The broadcasts always ended with Paul Harvey saying  “….and now you know the rest of the story.”

ISHM becomes IMAPS

The International Society for Hybrid Microelectronics (ISHM) was conceived in 1967 with a focus on thick film hybrid circuit technology, as he name clearly indicates. You see, in 1967 the microelectronics industry was in its infancy, there were no ICs, there was no consumer microelectronics industry unless you’re talking about the early radio and telephone industries which were built around the vacuum tubes (the first calculators didn’t hit the consumer market till the early 1970s if I’m remembering correctly). As IBM began to develop “computers” the circuits were manufactured using thick film hybrid technology. The System 360 (1964-1971) used ferrite core memories with small ceramic hybrid circuits providing the core drive and sense functions. [for a great perspective of this technology as it stood in 1972 read “Thick Film Hybrid Microcircuit Technology” by JV Biggers, Penn State, ISBN 0-89874-455-5 ]

These hybrid circuits used metal conductor and ceramic insulator pastes and screen printing technology to build up circuit patterns.

As time passed silicon IC’s went mainstream, as did printed wiring boards, DIP plastic packages and wirebonding (1970s). Looking at the ISHM Anaheim proceedings in 1985 (my first ISHM meeting) the bulk of the program was still focused on thick film technology and applications.

IFTLE concludes that the turning point for ISHM was 1992 and the inception of the Int. Conference on Multi Chip Modules which was held, over the next decade, every spring in Denver CO. MCMS were THE advanced packaging technology of the 1990s.  In 1992 it was unclear what technologies would be used for MCM manufacturing since there were ceramic, silicon and laminate options available. ISHM and IEPS (the International Electronic Packaging Society) got together to sponsor this major international meeting. (As an aside, IEEE CPMT was invited but chose to have their own MCM conference which in hindsight was a mistake because their more academic focused IEEE meeting crashed and burned after two years). The Denver MCM conference became a huge international success with a large exhibition and several thousand global attendees each year. If you were a player in advanced packaging you were at the Denver MCM conference. What became very clear to everyone, who wasn’t already convinced, was that new packaging technologies were taking over and the field was no longer being driven by ceramic / hybrid thick film technology.

If we look at the IMAPS leadership structure in the 1990s, Harry Charles (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Labs) was President in 1994 followed by George Harman (NIST) in 1995, Rao Tummala (IBM, GaTech) in 1996, Jim Drehle (HP) in 1997 and myself (Dow Chemical) in 1998 . This string of Presidents had a shared vision for ISHM to be a broad multidisciplinary packaging society. Not to eliminate hybrid thick film technology, but rather to be inclusive of whatever new packaging technologies that came along.  The inside joke between Tummala, who’s degree was in ceramics and who made his name at IBM developing ceramic technology for IBM super computers and myself at the time was “remember the graduate”. This referred to the Dustin Hoffman movie “The Graduate” (1967) wherein advice was given to newly graduated Hoffman about where to focus his career “Ben I want to say just one word to you….just one word…plastics!”) .

So…when IEPS approached ISHM with a proposed merger in 1996 this group clearly saw an opportunity to have the new name reflect what we wanted ISHM to become. The new acronym of IMAPS (International Microelectronics and Packaging Society, was chosen over the strong objections of some long time ISHM members and corporate sponsors who were still focused on thick film technology, but in the end the advanced packaging theme prevailed.

To IFTLE the inclusion of “and” in the name never made sense, but there was concern about being called IMPS (An imp is a mythological being similar to a fairy or goblin, frequently described in folklore and superstition).

IEEE CHMT -> IEEE CPMT -> IEEE EPS?

In 1978 IEEE formed the “Components, Hybrids, and Manufacturing Technology Society” (CHMT).” As you can tell from the society name, hybrids were still a driving technology in the late 1970s.

Under the guidance of Presidents Ron Gedney (IBM, 1993) , CP Wong (AT&T Princeton, 1994) and Dennis Olsen (Motorola, 1995) the Society changed its name to “Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology Society” in 1994 replacing the specific “hybrids” with the more generic “packaging”.

In 2015, after leadership meetings to discuss where packaging is going and whether IEEE CPMT was structured to take advantage of any changes, President Jie Xue (Cisco) commissioned a study group of myself, Rolf Aschenbrenner (Fraunhoffer IZM) and Subu Iyer (IBM now UCLA) to examine CPMT branding and come back with any recommended changes.

Discussions with general membership revealed that while the ECTC conference name was well known, few outside the inner circle understood what CPMT stood for let alone that it was the IEEE society that actually owned ECTC.

In 2016 the committee came back to the Board of Governors with the following observations

• Our society is highly multidisciplinary
• Any new name should be inclusive not exclusive
• A new society name should NOT focus on trendy buzz words of the day like nano, 3D, IoT (like hybrids was years ago) but rather fundamental basic descriptions that do not change over the decades

A motion was made to change the Society name to the simple and clear “IEEE Electronics Packaging Society” or  IEEE EPS .

The board passed this motion and following Society bylaws the general membership was informed and asked for their opinion. There were 10 objections to the proposed change from the 2400 members.  Hopefully, when full approval is received by the IEEE Technical Activities Board and the IEEE Board of Directors, in the June 2017 timeframe, we will become the

IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS)

Your 2016 IEEE CPMT International BOG (board of governors) is shown below with Jean Trewhella (GlobalFoundries) serving as President .  For those who do not follow society leadership goings-on, your board member representatives are voted on for 3 year terms by the membership in either the Americas, Europe or Asian areas. Members vote only for the representatives for their area. The number of representatives for an area is determined by the number of members in that area.

So, now you know the rest of the story………………

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