Electronic Packaging

The Technical Division on Electronic Packaging was established by SEM in 1993. Its mission is to serve as a forum for exchange of technical information on developments and applications in electronic packaging, with an emphasis on experimental mechanics. Due to the rapid evolution of semiconductor technology and the ever-increasing pressure to reduce costs and development cycle time, the role of mechanical analysis has been changed from a problem- solving (passive} mode to a predictive (active} mode, where the mechanical analysis is performed for design/performance optimization and reliability prediction of a new technology product at its conceptual stage of development. The dependency of product development on the mechanical analysis has fostered increasing activity in experimental analysis both for specific studies and/or guidance of numerical modeling.

SEM Electronic Packaging Division - Updated May 2009

The objectives of the Electronic Packaging Technical Division are to provide a technical forum for the experimental and modeling techniques related to electronic packaging.  Technical areas targeted in this TD include aspects of design, development, testing and characterization of advanced packaging architectures, reliability prediction methods, modeling and simulation techniques, prognostics, and health monitoring techniques, sensors and measurements, failure mechanisms, reliability physics, reliability testing, data analysis, and accelerated testing.  This year the electronic packaging technical division arranged one-session in the area of electronic reliability and prognostics.  The focus is on a wide variety of applications including technologies for aerospace, and commercial products.  Examples include, leadfree solders, stretchable electronics, and embedded components.  Several aspects of design and reliability of electronics are addressed at all levels of packaging including the chip-level, package-level, assembly-level, and the product-level.

The technical division plans to grow the emphasis on technologies in the areas of experimental mechanics, environmentally-friendly products, and miniaturization.  Presently, leadfree solders is a huge focus in the electronic community since there are a multitude of alloys available and yet very little is understood about the mechanical behavior and reliability of these alloy systems under thermal, shock and vibration stresses.  Electronics is a unique application in which miniaturization in product form factors has placed different materials in close proximity of each other and the external environment.  Electronic applications pose some interesting challenges for the mechanical engineers in several areas including, understanding the constitutive and damage behavior of the materials and interfaces, methods for sample preparation, methods for acquiring data in small form factors, and development of accelerated tests that can provide meaningful representation of the field environments.  Industry and academia have come together in a variety of forums to address some of the broader challenges.  Given the plethora of challenges, the pace of technology advancement and the relative lack of tools to address the problems, there is an increased need for mechanical engineering focus on electronic products.

Strategic areas of focus for upcoming conferences include:
(1) Packaging Architectures
CSP, WLP, BGA, CGA, LGA and SMT Packages, 3D Integration, TSVs, Flip-Chip, MEMS, Photonics, Optoelectronics, Cu-Low-K, Leadfree Solders, Novel Packaging.

(2) Applications:
Consumer Electronics, Military Electronics, Medical Electronics, and Industrial Electronics.