The 72nd IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC) was held again in person from May 31st to June 3rd, 2022. The conference brought together more than 1,500 industry professionals, academics, and students from 23 countries after three virtual years. A Big Thank You to our ECTC family for this great support. ECTC is sponsored by the Electronics Packaging Society (EPS) of the IEEE.
We are deeply grateful and cordially thank our 43 sponsors and our 100 exhibitors for supporting the ECTC 2022 conference. You are the enabling core of ECTC, allowing our packaging community to meet in such a supportive environment.
The return to a live event also means that our Technology Corner returned to a newly renovated exhibition space with over 100 companies representing the full spectrum of materials, services, equipment, and products for the electronic packaging industry. Exhibit space was limited, as always, and again this year there was a waiting list for exhibitors after the space was sold out.
Looking forward to 2023 in Orlando, ECTC will have a larger exhibit space and the exhibit application for next year will soon be available to the public via the ECTC website. Thank you to Wolfgang Sauter for organizing ECTC sponsorship and support and Alan Huffman for organizing the ECTC Technology Corner at ECTC 2022 in the new exhibition building.
Preparations for the 72nd ECTC started last October when the Executive Committee announced ahead of the abstract submission deadline that the conference would be held again in person. Our professional volunteers serving in the technical sub-committees reviewed 488 submitted abstracts with a near-even split between submissions from academia and industry.
The number of submitted abstracts was on par with our in-person conferences earlier. Ultimately, 71% of the submitted abstracts were accepted. In a testimony to the diversity of the industry and the conference, abstracts were received from 25 countries with the United States, Taiwan, and South Korea leading the way in the number of abstract submissions.
Because of some travel restrictions world-widely we had to incorporate approximately 30% pre-recorded presentations, which were organized by MP4 videos uploaded to the conference in advance. ECTC 2022 organized audio visual (AV) support in the sessions to handle the combination of pre-recorded and in-person presentations very well and smoothly. The conference included 356 papers in 41 oral sessions. There were nine special sessions in a full day track from early morning Tuesday until the evening, which together with the parallel Professional Development Courses (PDCs) and the Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap (HIR) track draw a very high first-day attendance.
Heterogeneous Integration uses packaging technology to integrate dissimilar chips, devices, or components with different materials and functions, and from different fabless design houses, foundries, wafer materials, feature sizes, and companies into a system or subsystem. This workshop took place as a full-day event, incorporating one of the ECTC 2022 special sessions.
The HIR workshop took place as a full-day event from Tuesday 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., providing again in-person presentations and discussion. Bill Chen, ASE; Bill Bottoms, 3MTS; and Ravi Mahajan, Intel, organized an impressive HIR workshop program during which many of the technical working groups presented on their areas of expertise.
This year, 16 PDCs organized by PDC Committee chairs, Kitty Pearsall, Boss Precision, Inc., and Jeffrey Suhling, Auburn University were offered. The 2022 ECTC PDCs provided a broad representation of topics of interest for electronic packaging technologists. Each of the courses was presented by world-class experts, enabling participants to broaden their technical knowledge base and have been very well attended with 334 attendees. As in the past, CEU/PDH credit has been provided at no expense to the attendee upon request.
On Tuesday morning June 31st, our special sessions track started with a special session about the industry trends and a growing interest in Micro-LED. Liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays are the leading technologies in today’s display industry. Chukwudi Okoro, Corning, and Benson Chan, Binghamton University invited an impressive set of speakers from 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. to talk about Micro-LED display technologies. This special panel session addressed the progress and the remaining challenges associated with the commercialization of cost-effective microLED-enabled display technology. It was very well with more than 110 attendees, in spite of the early morning.
The ECTC Special Session of Amr Helmy, Univ. of Toronto took place from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon and highlighted the IEEE EPS HIR Roadmap, presenting special topics from the HIR working groups. This panel session focused on the hardware design and packaging approaches that can enable the scaling of Machine Learning and AI systems by utilizing heterogeneous integration as a tool to expand SiP capabilities. This special session was integrated into the HIR workshop program and took place in the same room with attendance peaking at 140.
The ECTC Special Session organized by E. Jan Vardaman, TechSearch International, Inc. from 13:30 p.m. – 15:00 p.m. on Tuesday was entitled “Meeting Next Generation Packaging Challenges: Chiplets to Co-Packaged Optics”. The next generation of advanced packaging will see greater adoption of heterogeneous integration in the form of chiplets as we move into the 3nm semiconductor node.
This panel discussed the changes in the infrastructure required to meet the needs, including the roles that the foundry and the OSAT will play. New material requirements were addressed, the importance of co-design was highlighted, the need for new thermal solutions was discussed, and changes in the test approach were investigated. This special session was highly appreciated, drawing more than 200 attendees.
The ECTC Special Session from 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. covered the topic, “How will IC substrate technology evolve to enable next-generation Heterogeneous Integration schemes for high-performance applications?” and was organized by Kuldip Johal, Atotech Group, and Bora Baloglu, Amkor. This special panel session featured a range of industry experts from OEM, OSAT, IC substrate manufacturing, and material process/ equipment, to discuss how IC substrate technology can evolve to enable shrinkage of features (line/ space, via/pad) enabling increased I/O density for next-generation high-performance applications. This special session also was attended by more than 140 attendees.
ECTC 2022 followed tradition and brought back the young professionals networking event from 7:00 p.m. – 7:45 p. m. on Tuesday evening organized by Yan Liu, Medtronic; and Adeel Bajwa, Kulicke and Soffa. This ECTC 2022 special session was a great networking opportunity for young engineers, researchers, and students, to meet senior EPS members and professionals, learn more about industry activities, receive career guidance, and engage in discussions.
The Tuesday program was finalized by the ECTC 2022 evening Special Session, the traditional ECTC Plenary Session, chaired by the IEEE ECTC 2022 general chair Rozalia Beica, AT&S, and Jean Christophe Eloy, Yole Developpement. This session focused on the important topic of – Digital Transformation – The Cornerstone of Future Semiconductor and Advanced Packaging Growth. The special session featured panel discussions with industry experts and executives across the supply chain, with global participation, to address the impact of digital transformation on our industry, industry dynamics, and future trends and was well attended.
The technical sessions program of ECTC 2022 started Wednesday morning, June 1st with six parallel tracks. The attendance overall was very good, in many sessions overwhelmingly high, showing that the in-person ECTC conference event has been highly appreciated by our ECTC community. The technical sessions were well prepared and both in-person and virtual MP4 presentations were very well received by our attendees. The top session attendance is shown in Table 1. (cumulative; all 7 paper attendance numbers added)
- The top 3 Presentations (Attendance) were Video Presentations
- 6 out of the Top 10 Presentations (Attendance) were Video Presentations
- 5 Presentations with over 300 Attendees
- 23 Presentations with over 200 Attendees
- 61 Presentations with over 100 Attendees
On Wednesday June 1st, Chris Koopmans – Chief Operations Officer of Marvell, delivered a great invited keynote luncheon speech sharing insights into how data infrastructure is converging into the cloud, the emerging cloud-optimized silicon era and the technology areas the industry must tackle to accelerate the power of data infrastructure with cloud-optimized silicon. We cordially thank Chris Koopmans for his great ECTC 2022 keynote luncheon speech.
During the Luncheon, past general chairs of the ECTC conference gathered together for a memorial photo (Figure 2). Thank you very much for your great leadership.
The ECTC Diversity Panel Special Session chaired by Kim Yess – Brewer Science/ECTC) and Christina Amon – Univ. of Toronto/ITherm, and moderated by Francoise von Trapp, 3D InCites, started a few years ago as a women-focused panel. It has now evolved into a Diversity and Career Panel. This year’s focus was on Solving Diversification Challenges and Workforce Retention Issues.
By 2022, it’s well understood that a diverse and inclusive workforce improves innovation, productivity, and the bottom line, yet companies in the microelectronics industry struggle to recruit both women and under-represented minorities to fill thousands of open positions. After introduction of the panelists a lively discussion developed along a set of major questions with the actively participating audience. The discussion addressed the different aspects of this years topic very well and was very well supported by the contributions of the panelists as well as by very open and supportive contributions from the audience proving the rising importance of this societal challenge.
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On Wednesday evening the traditional ECTC 2022 IEEE EPS President’s Panel Special Session addressed the State-of-the-Art (SOTA) Heterogeneous Integrated Packaging ProgramSHIP Project with DoD. It was chaired by EPS president Kitty Pearsall, Boss Precision, Inc. and Chris Risso, Booz Allan Hamilton. SHIP will leverage the expertise of commercial industry to develop and demonstrate a novel model to ensure sustained DoD access to secure heterogeneous integration, advanced packaging, and test of SOTA advanced packaging and create a catalog of solution components that consist of both die and package components, IP, protocols, tool sets, and design/manufacturability and test methodologies.
After a set of impressive presentations introducing the present and future technology implementations for both SHIP Digital and SHIP RF, a Q&A discussion with the audience took place.
Thursday June 2nd continued with the six parallel technical session tracks of the main program, with the same high attendance and appreciation. At the ECTC 2022 IEEE EPS Luncheon the 2021 ECTC Best Paper Awards were celebrated. Awards for best and outstanding papers from last year’s 2021 virtual ECTC, both in oral presentation sessions and interactive sessions, were presented by the ECTC 2021 ECTC Vice General Chair, Ibrahim Guven. The awards are also posted in the final program of ECTC 2022 on the ECTC website. Also presented was the Intel Best Student Paper Award for ECTC 2021.
The Electronic Components and Technology Conference is proud to announce these “Best of Conference” papers selected from the 71st ECTC proceedings. The authors of the Best Session Paper share a check for US $2,500, and the authors of the Best Interactive Presentation share a check for US $1,500. The winning authors also receive a personalized plaque commemorating their achievement.
Best Session Paper
Session 34, Paper 6
Proof of Concept: Glass-Membrane Based Differential Pressure Sensor
Anatoly Glukhovskoy, Maren S. Prediger, Jennifer Schäfer – Leibniz University; Norbert Ambrosius, Aaron Vogt, Rafael Santos, Roman Ostholt – LPKF Laser & Electronics AG; Marc Christopher Wurz – Leibniz University
Best Interactive Presentation Paper
Session 42, Paper 6
System in Package Embedding III-V Chips by Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging for RF Applications
Arnaud Garnier, Laetitia Castagné, Florent Gréco – CEA-Leti; Thomas Guillemet – Thales DMS; Laurent Maréchal, Mehdy Neffati – United Monolithic Semiconductors; Rémi Franiatte, Perceval Coudrain – CEA-Leti; Stéphane Piotrowicz – III-V Lab; Gilles Simon – CEA-Leti
Intel Best Student Paper
The winning student receives a personalized plaque and a check for US $2,500. The following paper was selected based on the Intel Best Student Paper competition conducted at the 71st ECTC. Thank you very much to Intel for sponsoring this award.
Session 21, Paper 4
Mechanical Behavior and Reliability of SAC+Bi Lead-Free Solders with Various Levels of Bismuth
KM Rafidh Hassan, Jing Wu, Mohammad S. Alam, Jeffrey Suhling, and Pradeep Lall – Auburn University
Outstanding Papers
The winning authors for the Conference Outstanding Session Paper and Interactive Presentation selected from the 71st ECTC proceedings receive a personalized plaque commemorating their achievement and will share a check for US $1,000.
Outstanding Session Paper
Session 25, Paper 6
Ultra-Thinning of 20-nm Node DRAMs down to 3 μm for Wafer-on-Wafer (WOW) Applications
Zhiwen Chen, Naoko Araki, Youngsuk Kim, Tadashi Fukuda, Koji Sakui, Tomoji Nakamura – Tokyo Institute of Technology; Tatsuji Kobayashi, Takashi Obara – Micron Memory Japan; Takayuki Ohba – Tokyo Institute of Technology
Outstanding Interactive Presentation
Session 40, Paper 6
Cu-Recrystallization and the Formation of Epitaxial and Non-Epitaxial Cu/Cu/Cu Interfaces in Stacked Blind Micro Via Structures
Tobias Bernhard, S. Dieter, Roger Massey, S. Kempa, E. Steinhäuser, Frank Brüning – Atotech Deutschland GmbH.
Thursday evening our colleagues from Japan Yasumitsu Orii, Nagase; and Shigenori Aoki; Lintec chaired this year’s IEEE EPS seminar in a special session, which focused on the Interconnect Technologies for Chiplets.
Moore’s law is reaching an end. The new approach comes with “chiplets” which is something like high-tech Lego blocks. Instead of carving new processors from silicon as single chips, semiconductor companies assemble them from multiple smaller pieces of silicon—known as chiplets. This highly attended session discussed several interconnect technologies for chiplets such as Silicon Bridge, Advanced Interposer, Fan-out wafer-level packaging, and optical interconnection. This special session was highly appreciated and well attended by the audience.
Friday, June 3rd continued with the successful technical sessions program for a third full day with high session attendance.
During the Friday ECTC Luncheon, the EPS volunteer Awards for 10 years were presented by IEEE EPS president Kitty Pearsall, Boss Precision, Inc. to the awardees: Kemal Aygun, Tz-Cheng Chiu, Gordon Elger, Jae-Woong Nah, Valerie Oberson, Dan Oh, P. Markondeya Raj, Katsuyuki Sakuma, Dwayne Shirley, Ivan Shubin, Yoichi Taira. Cordial congratulation and a big Thank You to the awardees for 10 years of support of IEEE EPS and ECTC. The Friday ECTC 2022 Luncheon was finalized with the “world-famous” raffle moderated by Tom Reynolds drawing a sequence of interesting newest electronics packaging books and high-value articles. Thank you to the donors for their important support and congratulation to the raffle winners.
Overall, the 72nd ECTC was a unique experience but really showed how strong the packaging community is. Again in-person we had a very strong exhibitor presence, excellent sponsorship, and a high number of high-quality technical presentations, and excellent presentation attendance. The ECTC Executive Committee sincerely thanks all the attendees, exhibitors, and conference sponsors for their support as well as all the committee members and chairs who are volunteering their time to help organize the sessions and make ECTC such a success every year. Special thanks also to our event and AV management team around Lisa Renzi, Renzi and Company, Inc., and to IEEE CPS for their support to create the ECTC 2022 downloadable proceedings. A big Thank you to Rozalia Beica, AT&S, ECTC 2022 general chair, and Ibrahim Guven, Virginia Commonwealth University, ECTC 2022 vice general chair for their great leadership and the ECTC 2022 executive committee and our technical program committees for organizing the ECTC 2022 conference.
The IEEE EPS 73rd Electronic Components and Technology Conference will be held May 30 –June 2, 2023, at The JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes, Orlando, Florida, USA. Ibrahim Guven from AT&S will be the General Chair of this conference. The Call for Papers and PDC Proposals will be available at www.ectc.net, and the abstract submission will open the second week of August 2022 already and will close on October 10, 2022. Please get those abstracts ready and submit them as soon as abstract submission opens in the second week of August 2022.
We are looking forward to seeing you all in Orlando for ECTC 2023, to continue our ECTC conference in reality with in-person sessions, technology corner and exhibition, speaker breakfasts, our gala and networking events, and other opportunities to interact with our colleagues from our packaging community.
