Message from the Technical Chairs

We would like to welcome you to IMAPS 2007 in San Jose, California, the heart of “Silicon Valley,” where you’ll be able to enjoy close proximity to world class wineries, over 100 restaurants in the downtown area, and unparalled cultural diversity. We have brought together a Technical Program with 30 sessions and 200 presentations addressing all aspects of microelectronics packaging “between the chip and the system.”  We will also have two Interactive Poster sessions, 18 Professional Development Courses, 3 keynote presentations, a powerful Global Business Council meeting and a significant Student participation activity.  New challenges and opportunities to enhance our products have been presented with globalization being realized. This has helped in bringing about a paradigm shift in time-to-value for a myriad of our electronic products. To support the globalization focus a Japanese-to-English translated session, and, for the first time, two Chinese-to-English translated sessions have been included in the program track.

Forty years ago in May of 1967, the world’s first videogames - as we know them today - made their quiet, humble entrance into the world. It was the same year that IMAPS came into existence. Reflecting back, and as we celebrate the IMAPS 40th anniversary, both video games and IMAPS have endured the test of time and flourished. Of course, the packaging technologies developed by folks who attend our symposium were a large measure of the videogames success story.

IMAPS 2007 in San Jose promises to be an excellent technical program, with special focus sessions addressing issues that are pertinent to the San Jose electronics industry:  RF/Wireless, RF/Broadband, Military Applications, and Consumer Products.  The program is organized into six tracks that address System Packaging, Materials, Reliability, Signal Integrity, Advanced Technologies and the RF, Automotive and Translated track.  Specific topics are: Pb Free, LED/SiC, Thermal Management, Interconnect Technologies, LTCC, EMI/Signal Integrity, System Packaging/Design, Extreme Environments, RoHS, Power Delivery Technology, Package Reliability, 3D Packaging, Wirebonding, Design & Modeling, Sensors and MEMS, Flip Chip Bumping and Flip Chip Reliability, Emerging Technologies, Underfills and Adhesives, Biomedical, and Electrostatic Discharge Protection. The highly successful Global Business Council program, which will be held on Wednesday, November 14th, is comprised of three powerful presentations that address the “business” side of our society.

One of the great aspects of attending a technical program of this nature is the ability you will have to meet and converse with folks from all over the world. IMAPS, a truly international society, will have speakers from 13 countries, and attendees from Europe, the Pacific Rim, and the Americas, providing you, the attendee, with an incredible opportunity to network.

We would like to thank the IMAPS National Technical Committee for an outstanding job of reviewing abstracts and setting up sessions. It was a difficult task; this year there were more excellent abstracts submitted and sessions suggested than we could accommodate at the symposium. Andy Strandjord, our Technical Vice President and Greg Caswell, the General Chair, were a great help in streamlining the process for reviewing, selecting, and organizing sessions. We would also like to thank our Session Champions and Chairs who have been instrumental in identifying experts in their fields and soliciting abstracts. Finally, none of this could happen without the invaluable help from our IMAPS staff.

To quote a song title from the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” album that also made its debut forty years ago, we hope to make IMAPS 2007 a success “with a little help from my friends.”

Hope to see you in San Jose.

Sarosh Patel
Flextronics
saroshpatel@solectron.com

Ray Alexander
Teradata, A division of NCR
check6x@sbcglobal.com