Over the past few year, electronic products, and especially those which fall within the category of Consumer Electronics, have been significantly reduced in physical size and weight. Products such as cellular telephones, lap-top computers, pagers, camcorders, etc., have been reduced by as much as 3/4 of their original introductory size and weight. The most significant contributing factor to thi...

Traditionally, the evolution of advanced IC assemblies has been due to defense and aerospace applications, where reliability, size and weight were at a premium, and cost was a secondary consideration. In the 1980’s, high performance computing became the advanced packaging development stimulus. That world changed again in the late 1990’s with the emergence of ubiquitous digital content, providin...