Micronews had the pleasure to sit down with key leaders of ECTC to discuss the success of this year’s show while taking a peak at next year.

You may not know it but the ECTC conference has been debating how to get you from one SILO to the next SILO to solve today’s challenges which are transcending technologies. This has been no small feat and the 200+ volunteers that work to make ECTC a success for “you”, the attendee, had many meetings to bring this to fruition at the conference this week. This was the theme throughout the conference this year!

ECTC’s leadership has been listening and learning, from its vast and very knowledgeable organization which includes the volunteer organizers, the attendees and exhibitors, about the challenges this industry faces.   Just as the conference has evolved from the days focusing on individual components, the challenges have changed, as the conference now tracks the technology for the entire structure across the entire value chain, from substrates to end applications.

David McCann, outgoing program chair responsible for this year’s content, sees the challenges this way: “We addressed a lot of technologies that are all hitting the wall at the same time”. He went on to say “In the past these problems could have been solved within each technology discipline (SILOs), however we know this will not work for the challenges facing us this year and beyond. We believe the critical challenges of the next five years are far greater than the challenges we faced the last 20 years”. ECTC worked hard for this year’s event to bring technology ideas and solutions that worked across the silos, for example: Density is driven by memory which creates faster access which then means we have more bandwidth, denser packages means the silicon gets weaker…. OK, did I mention we have to somehow get heat out of this package? The 2010 ECTC theme must have penetrated this year’s presenters because more than half of the papers addressed these issues!

Hopefully you had the chance to hear Wednesday’s keynote luncheon speaker, as he addressed these concerns in a way we all can understand. He put it this way, “While the past was dominated by the front end, the future will be dominated by the back end.” It reminds me of an old real estate axiom, location, location, location, but we know in our business it’s, package, package, package. 2010 ECTC show was right on target with lots of new ideas, and solutions.

Looking ahead to next year….. The new incoming program chair, Wolfgang Sauter, told us the committees really start putting pen to paper for 2011 in a Mid Year review, late July, but he knows that the event just like the technology will continue to reinvent itself. Based on 2010 input you might see more international cross functional sessions, to keep breaking down the silos. Also new devices such as RFID and MEMS keep bouncing against ECTCs core technology which means might see more papers covering these topics.

We will keep you posted on the 2011 ECTC developments – Micronews Editorial Team