You know how sometimes you feel like you know a person you haven’t actually met because you read something they wrote or sat through a presentation? And then when you finally meet face to face, it’s like meeting an old friend, “Oh you’re so-and-so!! I feel like I already KNOW you!” That’s how it was when Karen Lightman, of MEMS Industry Group (MIG), and I met at SEMICON West; first at the EV Group 30th birthday party, where she volunteered to sing “Happy Birthday” for my video montage, and then again at SPTS’s launch party when I needed to do a retake. (Unfortunately, being a Flip Video newbie, I clicked “stop” when I should have clicked “record” and never even captured it.) Lucky for me, she agreed to do a retake if I would let her video me about how I became the Queen of 3D for HER blog.
Turns out we have more in common than our new Flip Video cameras. For instance, we both like to blog about our travels, cleverly disguising the posts by tossing in technical bits, when we know the fun part is writing about the local culture, who we saw, and where and what we ate. Most importantly, we’ve each found our niche in emerging technologies – MEMS and 3D.
So we got to talking, and agreed that it was time to join forces because there’s a lot of overlap with MEMS and 3D integration. In fact, many processes used in 3D TSV stacking were initially developed for MEMS manufacturing (deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and wafer bonding come to mind.)
3D InCites has flirted with MEMS on occasion, promoting the MEPTEC MEMS Symposium, hosting a 3D MEMS discussion, etc… so why not dive in and commit? As Carolyn White, of Fitzgerald and Associates once pointed out to me, MEMS has always been 3D. And when it comes to system-level MEMS IC integration, 3D is poised to play a significant role. Additionally, many of our 3D InCites’ partners also serve the MEMS market with their tools and processes. It really is a natural fit.
So pretty soon, start looking for MIG events to be posted and covered on 3D InCites, and vice versa. We’ll be featuring one another’s blog posts when relevant, so that 3D InCites and MIG members alike get to enjoy our respective ramblings without having to look to far to find them. And I’m sure we’ll come up with some other fun ideas to keep our readers entertained…. I mean informed. I’ve got ideas percolating already and I’m pretty excited about it! – F.v.T.
