Georgia Tech Packaging Research Center: leading the SOP paradigm.

The Packaging Research Center (PRC) at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA) has a mission it believes will revolutionize the convergent and microminiaturized systems of tomorrow. At their June 16 open house, several center directors, professors and graduate students spent a full day educating attendees on the vision that is system-on-a-package (SOP) through tours and breakout sessions.

As explained by Professor Rao Tummala, PRC Director, the center's research mission revolves around exploring, developing and demonstrating the SOP concept. Simply put, with SOP, the package is the system. Instead of the bulky "system" boxes of the past that may have housed hundreds of components performing just one task, an SOP system performs computing, communication, consumer and other functions in a small, single system package.

SOP is about thin-film component integration by embedding actives and passives, and the benefits to this tiny single system package are many. According to Tummala, SOP overcomes the fundamental and integration shortcomings of system-on-chip (SOC) and system-in-package (SiP) technologies, which are limited by CMOS processing. Silicon technology has improved transistor density year after year, but it is not optimal for the integration of radio frequency (RF) and optical components, especially popular in the new age of wireless communication. With SOP, RF components--such as capacitors, filters and antennas--can be fabricated right on the package itself, rather than on the silicon.

Even though SOP promises to solve several computing and integration issues, it is not without its challenges. According to Tummala, one concern is signal interaction and noise management. In addition, the infrastructure of SOP presents a challenging question: Who will manufacture the new technology? Since integrated circuit (IC) companies make ICs and printed circuit board (PCB) fabricators make PCBs, SOP has yet to find a champion in either type of manufacturer. As one audience member commented, however, semiconductor companies are starting to see packaging--and not just silicon--as a value-add for customers.

The keen interest in SOP has produced several active members for the PRC, a National Science Foundation-funded National Engineering Research Center established in 1994. Supporting companies include IBM, HP, Nokia, Sony and Motorola, who are part of the larger network of 50 global companies who are involved in the center's research from SOP to flip chip to wafer-level packaging. "There have been dozens of technology transfers [from concept to production] since the PRC started," stated Tummala.

With an annual budget of about $20 million, the center comprises five academic departments at Georgia Tech, with over 200 students and 30 faculty members all employed in SOP research. In addition, the PRC has prototyping facilities, fundamental research laboratories across the Georgia Tech campus and a class 1000 clean room to aid its research activity and technology transfers for PRC members.

--Lisa Hamburg Bastin, Editor-in-Chief