Microelectronics devices contain many electronic components within an active silicon chip, such as transistors, capacitors, resistors, etc. To form a usable device, a silicon chip requires protection from the environment as well as both electrical and mechanical connections to the surrounding components. The technology dealing with these requirements is called electronic packaging.
In the physical design of electronic packaging, the following conditions must be considered:
- all the terminals on the chips must be provided access to input power and signal lines through electrical wiring or soldering,
- thermal energy transformed from electrical energy must be dissipated, and
- all the circuits must be protected from damage during next level assembly and its service life
The traditional role of mechanical analysis in electronic packaging was reliability assessment of microelectronics devices at the final stage of development. The shrinking product development cycle time, however, has changed the role of mechanical analysis from a problem solving (passive) mode to a predictive (active) mode, where the mechanical analysis is performed for
- performance optimization and
- reliability prediction of a new technology product at its conceptual stage of development. This dependency of product development on mechanical analysis has fostered increasing activity in mechanical experimentation, both for specific studies and for guidance of numerical modeling. The electronic packaging industry is one of the most rapidly growing industries. The experimental mechanics community is faced with the opportunity and challenge to contribute essential technology for this vibrant industry.