IEEE Rao R. Tummala Electronics Packaging Award

An IEEE Life Fellow, Koyanagi is a Senior Research Fellow at Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.

2019 - Ephraim Suhir

Professor, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA

“For seminal contributions to mechanical reliability engineering and modeling of electronic and photonic packages and systems.” 

With over 40 years of pioneering work in modelling and reliability engineering, Ephraim Suhir has enabled electronic packaging engineers to accurately predict stress in advanced packaged components for the design of more reliable devices. He was one of the earliest researchers to introduce the use of rigorous mechanics principles in electronic systems. His closed-form solutions have provided the electronics industry with invaluable tools for ensuring reliability and cost savings during the design process by eliminating errors early in the design process. He has applied his techniques to advanced components and packaged structures such as microelectronics, photonics, photo-voltaics, and thermoelectronic modules. Every serious mechanics practitioner and researcher in the electronics packaging field has been influenced by Suhir’s groundbreaking contributions.

2018 - William Chen

Fellow of ASE Group, Sunnyvale, California, USA 

“For contributions to electronic packaging from research and development through industrialization, and for his leadership in strategic roadmapping." 

William T. Chen is a visionary strategist, lead mentor for innovation, and hands-on engineer. His leadership has led to industrialization of game-changing packaging technologies by enabling miniaturization, cost reduction, and performance enhancements for today’s pervasive all-powerful electronic devices. They include development of copper wirebonds replacing gold interconnects, saving industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year and 2.5D packaging high-volume implementation, setting the standard for myriad interconnects in a small package space for applications including high-performance logic and memory. His strategic vision on fan-out wafer-level packaging is critical for meeting future demand for smaller, thinner, and faster electronic systems. Early in his career he pioneered the use of predictive verified modeling integrating micromechanics, materials science, and finite element crucial for generations of electronics products.

An IEEE Life Fellow, Chen is an ASE Fellow and senior technical advisor with ASE Group, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA.

Q&A with William Chen

2017 - Paul S. Ho and King-Ning Tu

An IEEE Fellow, Ho is director of the Laboratory for Interconnect and Packaging at the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Tu is the TSMC Chair Professor at National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.

"For contributions to the materials science of packaging and its impact on reliability, specifically in the science of electromigration."

The patented innovations of Paul S. Ho and King-Ning Tu overcame the roadblocks caused by electromigration that limited high-performance chip reliability for the semiconductor and electronics industry. First addressing the issues with aluminum wiring, then copper, and eventually solder-bump connections, their work provided the foundation to understanding the science of the failure mechanisms and guided high-performance chip designs and manufacturing processes that enabled high-volume manufacturing of many silicon nodes with low cost and high reliability. Ho and Tu also provided insights and solutions regarding the failure mechanisms associated with low-k dielectric materials, tin whiskers, and electromigration in interconnects critical to the success of high-performance flip-chip technologies.

 

 

2016 - Michael Pecht

Director, Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering at the University of Maryland, USA

"For visionary leadership in the development of physics-of-failure-based and prognostics-based approaches to electronic packaging reliability."

 A world leader in electronics packaging reliability, Michael Pecht, IEEE Fellow, has developed prediction tools that enable manufacturers to make their products safer and more operationally available. As an alternative to flawed handbook-based reliability prediction methods, Pecht developed the physics-of-failure (PoF) approach to electronics reliability. The PoF approach provides greater accuracy by taking into account the actual failure mechanisms of the device in the operating conditions that the device would likely face in the field. He also developed prognostics-based health assessment methods that have been adopted by industry to predict reliability for critical systems such as vehicle batteries, avionics, and alternative energy sources. Pecht also founded the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering.

 

 

2014 - Avram Bar-Cohen

Avram Bar-Cohen has defined and guided the emergence of thermal packaging as a critical engineering domain, addressing the consequences of heat generation within ever-shrinking electronic components. He has laid the scientific foundations for the thermal management of electronic components with seminal research on air-cooled heat sinks and liquid cooling of logic and radio-frequency devices. Engineered thermal management devices and heat flow paths are necessitated by the consequences of heat generation within electronic components, as uncontrolled temperatures can cause degradation in performance and reliability of solid-state devices. Dr. Bar-Cohen’s work has formed the basis of thermal courses taught today and has driven advances in applications ranging from consumer electronics to super-computing platforms. He is also leading the way in the emerging area of embedded microfluidic cooling techniques.

An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Bar-Cohen is a Distinguished University Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.

 

2013 - John H. Lau

ITRI Fellow, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan   

“For contributions to the literature in advanced solder materials, manufacturing for highly reliable electronic products, and education in advanced packaging."

One of the most well-known authors in electronics packaging, John H. Lau’s leading-edge research has driven reliability improvements and advancements with his extensive research on solder-joint reliability, environmentally friendly solder alternatives, and advanced interconnect techniques. Dr. Lau led an international team to study solder-joint reliability issues and published the first book on the subject in 1991. He published additional influential research addressing reliability in lead-free solder processes and advanced interconnect methods such as flip-chip technology. Dr. Lau has influenced the adoption of lead-free solder processes as the industry shifts to more environmentally friendly interconnect methods, publishing a book providing manufacturing guidelines and parameters in 2003. He was also responsible for converting Agilent Technologies’ entire product line to lead-free. Dr. Lau’s recent work has provided extensive publications on advanced interconnect methods that have helped shape the landscape of 3D integrated-circuit integration technologies.

An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Lau is an ITRI Fellow with the Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan.

 

2012 - Mauro J Walker

Senior Vice President and Director of Manufacturing,Motorola (Retired), Ocean Ridge, FL, USA                                     

“For advancing electronic manufacturing, technology and packaging worldwide through technical innovation and cooperative leadership in industry, government, academia and professional organizations.”

Mauro J Walker’s contributions to advancing electronics manufacturing technology helped place Motorola and the United States as leading high volume manufacturers of portable electronic devices. Mr. Walker’s leadership during the 1970s and 1980s drove the advanced technology necessary for miniaturization of portable communications such as pagers, two-way radios, and cell phones. At a time when the U.S. electronics industry was lagging Japan, Walker raised Motorola’s in-house microelectronics capabilities for packaging and assembly of semiconductor devices, propelling it to an industry leader. He established advanced manufacturing technology centers within Motorola, producing many innovations including high-speed surfacemount chip assembly. Mr. Walker was the founding chairman of the National Electronic Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI), representing over 60 electronic equipment manufacturers to improve the competitiveness of North American electronics manufacturing companies. With Walker’s vision, NEMI went international (now known as iNEMI) as the only global organization integrating the roadmap needs for all major technologies required for electronics manufacturing. An IEEE Life Fellow, Mr. Walker retired from Motorola, Inc. in 1998 as senior vice president and director of manufacturing.

 

2011 - Rao R. Tummala

Endowed Chair Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, Packaging Research Center, Atlanta, GA, USA

 

“For pioneering and innovative contributions to package integration research, cross-disciplinary education and globalization of electronic packaging.”

Rao R. Tummala is being recognized as the father of modern packaging innovations that have revolutionized the microelectronics packaging. Tummala’s pioneering inventions include the industry’s first plasma display and the first ceramic and thinfilm multichip packaging.. He is regarded as the father of Low-Temperature, Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology, an industry standard , and the father of  Systems- on- Package (SOP) concept as Moore’s Law for system integration. His leadership made packaging an academic subject. He was instrumental in the establishment of the first National Packaging Research Center in US for leading-edge research, cross-disciplinary education and global industry collaborations. He has authored the first reference,first undergraduate and first graduate textbook  that shaped the modern packaging landscape. An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Tummala is an endowed chair professor and director of the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga.

2010 - Herbert Reichl

Full Professor at Faculty IV Technische Univ Berlin, Berlin, Germany

“For contributions to the integration of reliability in electronic systems, and leadership in research and education in electronic packaging.”

Herbert Reichl was one of the first researchers to foresee the importance of microelectronics packaging in bridging the gap between research and applications. His pioneering work on heterogeneous integration, three-dimensional packaging, and embedded passive and active components set the path for future microelectronics, enabling applications ranging from mobile phones to wearable sensors. As founding director of Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM), Dr. Reichl has led many integration strategies and shepherded their transfer to commercialization. The exciting concept of electronic grains (or eGrains) is just one example. Functioning as tiny electronic sensors that can receive, process and store information, eGrains are very small, autonomous modules that can communicate with each other wirelessly, enabling “smart” devices. An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Reichl is currently a professor at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and continues to mentor generations of students and research staff in the area of R&D.

 

 

2008 - Karl Puttlitz, Sr.

President, Puttlitz Engineering Consultancy, Wappingers Falls, NY USA

and

PAUL A. TOTTA

Retired, IBM East Fishkill Facility, East Fishkill, NY, USA

 

“For pioneering achievements in flip chip interconnection technology and for semiconductor devices and packages”

The collaborative work of Karl J. Puttlitz and Paul A. Totta led to the introduction of flip chip interconnection technology, a breakthrough in semiconductor assembly and packaging that has enabled electronic device manufacturers to deliver smaller, more powerful and more reliable products.  Dr. Puttlitz and Mr. Totta were instrumental in championing the method whereby tiny solder bumps covering the face of a chip are directly reflowed to the circuitry. This was achieved by flipping the chip over so the bumps are soldered to mating circuit pads, hence the term “flip chip.”  This direct connection technique reduces the footprint of an individual component by up to 95 percent compared to the wire bonding method. In addition, the elimination of bond wires improves performance, offers greater input/output connection flexibility, improves ruggedness, and reduces the manufacturing costs of electronic devices such as personal computers and mobile phones.

Dr. Puttlitz is president of Puttlitz Engineering Consultancy, LLC, a company he founded in 2004. Previously, he held numerous engineering positions during a 43-year career at IBM, where he was awarded an IBM Outstanding Innovation Award and the Master Inventor Award for his work on flip chips.  An IEEE Fellow, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s of science degrees in metallurgical engineering and a doctorate in metallurgy / materials science engineering from Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.

Mr. Totta retired from IBM in 1999 following a 40-year career that included both engineering and management positions. An IBM Fellow from 1987–1999, he was elected to the technical council of IBM’s Academy of Technology.  In addition, he received three IBM corporate level awards for outstanding patents and contributions.  He was also presented the IMAPS Wagonon and the Fraunhofer IZM awards for his flip chip contributions. He earned a bachelor’s of science degree in metallurgical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.

 

Senior Consultant Interconnection Decision Consulting Flemington, NJ, USA

“For lifetime contributions to tantalum film technology and the introduction of new electronic packaging technology to development and manufacturing.”

During his almost 40-year tenure at Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric Company in both the Princeton, New Jersey and Winston-Salem, North Carolina facilities, John W. (Jack) Balde contributed significantly in the areas of tantalum film hybrids, under carpet cable technology, and the introduction of advanced interconnect technology to the Bell System. Under carpet cable technology later became a major product line for Thomas & Betts Corporation in Memphis, Tennessee.