Summary

This is the first volume of an annual monographic series devoted to the diverse aspects of electronics packaging technology. Each book is to be based on that year's presentations at the annual Electronics Packaging Symposium, which is run at the State University of New York at Binghamton by the Continuing Education Division of the T. J. Watson School of Engineering, Applied Science and Technology in cooperation with local professional societies (IEEE, ASME, SME, IEPS) and UnlPEG (University-Industry Partnership for Economic Growth. ) Electronics Packaging has been receiving significant visibility in recent years as it has become obvious that the near-future limitations to the continued development of high performance electronic chips will arise from technological problems in their packaging. The two most obvious of these are the escalating difficulties of removing Joule heat from circuits packed ever more closely together, and the problem of providing more and more electrical contacts to smaller and smaller packages. As recognition of these problems has developed, organizations such as NSF, SRC and MCC have joined with industry in calling for increased research effort in the area. The Materials Research Society and other professional scientific groups have introduced Electronics Packaging sessions into their conference programs, and the International Electronics Packaging Society (IEPS) is expanding rapidly. The field is inherently multi-disciplinary, incorporating several of the traditional sub-areas of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Physics and Chemistry.