New Wave from Asia
Dr. Sei-ichi Denda, Nagano Institute of Technology
Asia Session at 2002 ICEP
International Conference on Electronic Packaging 2002, formerly called IEMT/IMC Symposium, was held April 17 to 19, 2002, at seaside Dai-ichi Hotel Tokyo in Tennoz, Ohta-ku, Tokyo, Japan. The keyword of the event was “New Packaging Wave from Asia” reflecting rapid growth of Asian industries in electronic packaging. Dr. Wakabayashi of Shinko Electric was the General Chairperson of the organizing committee. Among 19 technical sessions a special Asia session was held for the first time in the afternoon of the first day after Dr. Bauer, President of IMAPS North America delivered a keynote address, “Device packaging in the year 2002”.
The Asia session consisted of five presentations from Asian countries, except for Japan. The speakers were Prof. Y.B. Sun from Korea, Dr. M.K. Iyer from Singapore, Prof. J. Ma from China, Prof. J.K. Kim from Hong Kong and Prof. S.L. Fu from Taiwan. They told about research organization, development activity and production capability in their own countries in the areas of semiconductor and electronic packaging. Asia is quickly becoming an important production base of semiconductor packaging as well as total electronic equipments assembly in the world. They gave the audience a big impression on how Asia is growing rapidly.
As in previous years the welcome reception and international reception made a friendly atmosphere among overseas and domestic attendees with their spouses. Several joyful gift presentations from the US VIP to Committee members and guest greetings followed.
Establishment of Asian Liaison Committee
On the second day of the ICEP, an Asian Liaison meeting was held with five Asian representatives and Dr. Bauer, Prof. Tummala (CPMT), Mr. Norlyng (Nordic) and Dr. Kurzweil from the European Liaison Committee, as observers. Seven Japanese including Dr. Wakabayashi as the chairman of the meeting and Prof. Suga, Chairman of International Committee of JIEP, expressed their views. The start of the Asian Liaison Committee was discussed and all attendees agreed to establish a standing committee. This item has been talked about several times at previous conferences before but it came to a conclusion now. The activities, purpose, rule and office works etc. of the committee will be fixed later. Preliminary talk will be done between Dr. Fu of Taiwan and Denda of Japan.
One of the committee’s tasks is to present editorial comments to Advancing Microelectronics. This note you are reading is the first one and from now on six countries will make contributions successively. I’m afraid US IMAPS members may have felt a lack of information from Asia except for international meeting proceedings. Hopefully the readers will get fresh information of the Asian area out of this column.
IMAPS in Japan
Japan has a unique non-profit organization activity in packaging technology. Japan Institute of Electronic Packaging (JIEP) was established five years ago by merging former SHM (ISHM counterpart in Japan) and the printed circuit institution, JIPC. IMAPS Japan Committee was placed in the JIEP organization. The Institute consists of 2,500 members, the second largest packaging organization next to IMAPS USA in the world. The journal of the Institute, consisting of news and articles is being published bimonthly in Japanese.
JIEP covers all area of packaging technology from semiconductor packaging, interconnection, substrates and a part of wafer process. This wide area of activity matches very well for advanced packaging technology. There are 12 research committees working hard for holding meetings (closed or open to outside) directed by several university professors.
IMAPS Japan Committee is also working toward holding an International Conference, technical seminars, workshops, exhibition and publications, etc. It manages a special translated session (Japanese Session) at the IMAPS USA Symposium. IMAPS Japan organizes a group for visiting IMAPS USA every year. In 2002, Dr. Nihei will lead the group of 10 engineers for the Denver Symposium. You can visit JIEP web site at http://www.jiep.or.jp/index.html.
Domestic Symposiums
There are two domestic symposiums on electronic packaging technology. One is JIEP’s Annual Meeting held in the spring in Tokyo for three days. Another is called Microelectronics Symposium (MES), a two day event held in the fall in Osaka, a western big business city. About 150 papers are presented and nearly 1,000 attendees were recorded for both meetings. Presentations and proceedings are spoken and written in Japanese. Receptions are held for new information exchange among engineers.
Technical seminars and workshops
More than 15 JIEP technical seminars are held in Japan in a year. Special current topics are selected among many related areas. Research committees are responsible for operating the seminar. Generally 100-200 attendees are seen. Some of workshops introduce fresh technologies in the form of poster presentations. The attendee will stay overnight at a resort and make new friends.
General trend of semiconductor industry in Japan
During the end of 2001, most big Japanese semiconductor industry companies (NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi and Fujitsu) experienced a big production drop due to market slow down, causing large company deficits. Memory business became almost no hope in price competition with Koreans and some Americans. They closed, sold or merged factories of memory wafer process and made drastic changes in organization and technology development target. Packaging process and substrate technology have been also affected largely with this current.
Remarkably, however, new technology development among electronics, chemistry and material farms are very active. All the conferences and symposiums are full of new ideas. Some of topics are very thin silicon wafer, reverse flip chip, resin bumps, snap cure multilayer substrate, silicon chip incorporated substrate, high speed interposer, 3D silicon stack, etc.
2003 ICEP
It has been set that the 2003 International Conference on Electronics Packaging (2003 ICEP) will be held on April 16 to 18, 2003, at Tennoz in Tokyo, the same site of 2002 ICEP. JIEP and IMAPS Japan are co-sponsoring the Conference. 300-word abstracts deadline is October 22, 2002, and full paper should be submitted by February 2003. 17th Microelectronics Show, a synchronized exhibition, is held at nearby Tokyo Ryutsu Center.
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