Course and relaxation in Penang

4th October 2016

Forgot to mention last week the IEEE-IEM eETD Mini Colloquium held on 24th September at  PSDC in Bayan Lepas, Penang.

http://sites.ieee.org/malaysia-edmttssc/eetd-mini-colloquium/

http://www.psdc.org.my/

Two excellent speakers from Japan, the first Dr Hideto Hidaka, CTO of Renesas speaking about embedded flash memory for MCU applications, its history, technology and new developments. After lunch the second speaker Dr Hideto Hidaka, of Tokyo University described optical range finding techniques using smart image sensory.

My own talk was on Packaging and Reliability for MEMS, abstract below

In the last two decades MEMS devices have become ubiquitous in almost all aspects of our lives, particularly in the cars we drive and the phones we use. By modifying the fabrication techniques originally developed for integrated circuits, microscopic devices are created which match or exceed the performance of their conventional counterparts but are far smaller, lighter and cheaper. But MEMS devices present considerable challenges in packaging and reliability.

Unlike conventional IC chips, which can be considered as fairly robust, monolithic blocks, most MEMS have easily damaged, delicate moving parts which cannot withstand conventional IC packaging approaches. Moreover, many MEMS sensors need to be exposed to the outside world so unique packaging solutions are needed. Indeed packaging is usually a key part of the overall design and functionality of the device; it cannot be an afterthought.

MEMS can suffer from unique failure mechanisms that don’t affect conventional ICs, stiction, electrostatic charging, fatigue and wear are key examples.

The talk will highlight some of the packaging and reliability challenges, together with examples of solutions which have enabled MEMS devices to play such an important role in our lives.

The course on RF Package Technology : Principles, Issues and Challenges finished a week ago. Great feedback from the participants who came from big MNCs, Intel, Avago, Infineon, NI, and ON semiconductor. Would be great to get more participants from SMEs. 

Since then I have been relaxing in historic Georgetown, Penang.  Photos of some traditional houses