Thanks and Goodbye -- Rao R. Tummala

I want to thank each and everyone one of you for allowing me to serve as your CPMT Society's President for the last four years. I'm the first president to have served two 2-year terms. I really enjoyed doing so.

In this last message as your president, I thought I would summarize what we have accomplished and what I see are some of the challenges we face as we look ahead. My focus has been mostly in four areas:

1. Globalization: Everything is going global. Internet changed everything. Almost every body has access to almost everything from almost anywhere. Most large companies are roughly 50 % inside their country and 50% outside. It is only natural for us in the CPMT Society to want to be the same. But there is one more important reason. The IEEE organization is truly a global society unlike most of the other engineering societies. Our society board, as of January 1, 2004, will have its first Technical VP and first Conference VP from outside the U.S., in addition to four other board members who are from Europe and Asia. Our individual and chapter memberships are also trending international in like manner. So, too, our conferences with about 50% occurring outside the U.S.

2. Strategic Focus: CPMT is "the" Packaging Society. But since packaging has not been taught traditionally at universities, Packaging engineers in the past, therefore, acquired knowledge and skills on the job. But in this day and age, with product cycles every six months, companies cannot afford to do that. So, packaging must become an academic subject. Our society, in contrast to the rest of IEEE, is mostly made up of industry members. The academic community had not participated very actively. Our society must, therefore, engage as many academicians and students as we can. I'm very proud of our accomplishments in this area. We started an international academic conference which brought the academic community together. We then funded courses for them to develop. The result was 12 different courses in such areas as RF, Thermal, Design, Test, MEMS and sensors. We began to develop student programs and chapters at various universities in Europe, Asia and the U.S. As a result of these and Georgia Tech's role as a Global Research Center dedicated to packaging, the community has developed courses, curricula, tracks, certificates, degrees, and the first set of textbooks. These programs are spreading so fast as to make packaging an academic subject within a decade worldwide.

3. New Technology Focus: Going back to mid-90s, CPMT's focus was on traditional packaging technologies such as wirebond, flip chip, QFP, BGA, PCB and SMT. But today's packaging is much more than that and our society covers some of the most leading-edge technologies, including mixed-signal design, thermo-mechanical reliability, integral RF, optical, MEMS, sensors, green electronics, wafer level packaging, SOP, SIP, mixed-signal test, high-density board and so on. We have begun to add nanopackaging by means of a workshop and an ECTC session.

4. Branding Focus: CPMT was not well known outside its membership. We have begun to change that by means of two items: 1) marketing effort, and 2) technical field award. The marketing effort was extensive and included preparing membership materials, revising websites, and communicating through packaging magazines. The technical field award is meant to recognize the most prominent global contributions of the past decades, as described in the insert.

 

 

CPMT's Future

 

The world is changing and most of these changes are because of technologies. CPMT must change too. It must change to bring new and emerging technologies faster, for use worldwide. It must change the way members need and use information - anytime, anywhere, and instantly. Some members need to be educated in tutorial fashion while others want it in "discovery" state.

It must educate CTOs as well as students and everyone in between. It must cut across technologies from devices, to packaging of these devices, to systems. It must provide information on various technology options and their trade-offs to the community. It must involve academicians both for leading-edge knowledge and for developing a new breed of engineers well-versed across several disciplines, from design to fabrication to test and reliability.

I expect to continue to play a role in these and others, working with you around the world.

Thanks and goodbye.

Rao R. Tummala

 

 

IEEE Seeks Outstanding Candidates for its Most Prestigious Technical Field ( $10K) Award in Device and Systems Packaging

Nomination Deadline: 31 January

 

The award is presented for meritorious contributions in packaging of microelectronics, optoelectronics, RF and wireless, MEMS, devices as well as systems packaging in computer, communication, consumer, automotive and other systems. This award may be presented to an individual or a team of not more than three. The award is administered by the Technical Field Awards Council of the IEEE Awards Board.

 

Prize items include a bronze medal, certificate and cash honorarium ($10K). It will be presented for the first time in 2004.

 

for detailed information http://www.ieee.org/portal/index.jsp?pageID=corp_level1&path=about/awards/sums&file=cpmt.xml&xsl=generic.xsl