NEMI Roadmap Unveiled.

The electronics manufacturing industry continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, driven by new products and applications, and this growth will put tremendous strain on manufacturing capacity in the next few years. In addition, the breakthrough technologies enabling these new products present manufacturing challenges that will require new solutions in areas such as packaging, components and assembly processes. These were the findings of the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative's (NEMI's, Herndon, VA) latest roadmap.

Other leading trends identified by NEMI's 2000 roadmap include a continued quest for greater productivity and lower cost, a shift in focus for where future gains may be found and an increasing emphasis on the environmental profile of electronic products.

New products and applications are demanding new technologies and manufacturing capacity. The explosive growth of cell phones, and the possibility that these devices will overtake personal computers as the primary method of accessing the Internet in the near future, could easily consume the entire installed manufacturing capacity for passive devices. The demand for high-density interconnect (HDI) boards, an area where North American fabricators continue to lag behind in volume capacity, and for integral passives, for which limited installed capacity exists, will increase. Similarly, growth in optoelectronics threatens to outstrip existing manufacturing capacity for components and fiber.

The technologies fueling the growth of new products and applications will require new packaging solutions, assembly processes and test capabilities. This is especially true for disruptive technologies such as optoelectronics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) where integration of light and micromechanical motion with electrical signals will change the rules from a technology and manufacturing perspective.

The 2000 roadmap identifies two different types of productivity challenges. First, as electronics manufacturing becomes increasingly distributed, business issues will dominate the quest for further efficiencies. As supply chain management emerges as a differentiator, manufacturers are grappling with the challenges of electronic integration of the supply chain and development of standards to enable that integration.

The second productivity challenge is the design tool infrastructure. Design tools and designer resources are unable to keep pace with the rate of advancement in silicon technology. The 21 percent, per year, increase in productivity of chip designers and tool infrastructure lags far behind the 60 percent, per year, increase in functions per chip. This same challenge affects packaging and board test.

Environmental concerns present a number of technology and business issues. North American companies continue to lag behind their Japanese and European competitors in development of environmentally conscious products. Foreign environmental regulations, currently in development, focus on products and may include take-back requirements, as well as electronics recycling and hazardous waste regulations. Costs associated with environmental compliance and waste product disposal are soaring, and impact competitiveness in world markets. Major Japanese manufacturers have announced aggressive environmental goals, which they plan to implement by April 1, 2001, and are already focusing marketing efforts on these features.

For more information on the roadmap, visit www.nemi.org or call [phone].

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