Future visions deduced research needs in electronics packaging and production

The purpose of his paper is to identify and briefly discuss some important areas where (additional) research is needed to be able to within 5-20 years realize the four “example-visions” presented in www.netpack-europe.org, Visions Lab: Augmented Reality, Personal Liberator, Clever Paper and Healthy Freedom. In total these visions embrace very diverse technology areas, many of those extending outside traditional electronics packaging and production. Electronics packaging and production is thus moving into an era that is driven by very complex system demands suggesting the use of a broader terminology, e.g. “System Products Interconnect and Hardware Integration”. In connection to this changed and extended view a new emphasis on “back-to-basics” and “bottom-upapproaches” will be needed to complement systems oriented top-down approaches. Examples of research areas brought up are; “Terahertz materials, photonic bandgap structures and devices”, “High capacity reconfigurable 3D optical interconnect routing”, “Interconnect fibres and fabrics”, “Fibres with inherent and attached diode/transistor Functions, “Paper with organicand/or mini-sized Siliconlogics and memories”, “Communication interface for printed electronics and, “Bio-electronic ion-toelectron and vice versa signal interfaces”.