Georgia Tech PRC announces Most Comprehensive
SOP Technology Alliances to Serve the Global Industry

Industry Centric Focus Six Major Alliances at PRC Membership Benefits and Costs Alliance Membership Benefits Sop Vision at Georgia Tech's PRC Research Accomplishments Education Accomplishments Industry Partnerships


Industry-Centric Focus by SOP Technology Alliances back

As a result of the U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF) grant as a National Engineering Research Center (ERC), global industry, and the State of Georgia investments since 1995, the Packaging Research Center (PRC) at Georgia Tech became a global leader with a microelectronics vision that it calls "system-on-a-package", or "SOP". It has the most unique and comprehensive infrastructure including a 300 mm SOP design and prototype facility and a highly-skilled research and administrative staff. The PRC has been pioneering the SOP concept, which it sees as an emerging and fundamental microelectronics and microsystems paradigm for the portable and desktop convergent systems of the future. The new SOP strategy is capable of bridging the time-to-market and technology gaps, posed by SOC, by combining the best of on-chip integration with the best of packaging integration. Such a vision is expected to lead to microminiaturized and convergent systems with microelectronics, photonics, RF and MEMS in a single component system. In doing so, it goes far beyond MCM, flip chip, CSP and microvia and even the emerging SIP approaches. The future focus of PRC will be to engage the global industry even more than in the past in collaborative research activities that are mid- to up-stream, user-inspired, system-driven, pre-competitive, leading-edge, fundamental, and enabling. Companies are expected to play critical roles in influencing, monitoring, and modifying the research projects and programs. This is accomplished by virtue of Technology Alliances and Teams that include academic faculty, company engineers on and off campus, PRC's research staff and graduate students. These alliance teams are expected to design and demonstrate the industry-inspired technologies by means of alliance testbeds.

Membership Benefits and Costs back

The PRC has several ways by which to engage industry; memberships starting at $25K for fellowship support to $60K for full members. Other engagement opportunities include:

• membership in the SOP technology alliances,
• customized and proprietary contracts,
• corporate memberships as a gateway into the center's core programs,
• fellowship grants,
• technical services such as prototypes, testing, measurements and inspections,
• consulting services and roadmap studies.

Companies are encouraged to become strategic partners, typically for three years, in one or more of the above Technology Alliances. Companies gain access to world-renowned faculty and a highly cross disciplined and well educated team of students, engineers, and industry experts who are deeply knowledgeable in leading-edge SOP technologies. The companies also experience the ability to network and partner with a broad cross-section of the microelectronic industry food chain from OEM's to material suppliers. Members will have access to a broad portfolio of intellectual property in SOP technologies and can participate in the Center's workshops, seminars, and short courses. The PRC has one of the most state-of-the-art facilities and extends its access for company-specific research and prototype services. All of these benefits allow members to leverage their investment in strategic SOP technologies. Costs and benefits are summarized as follows:


Alliance Membership Benefits back

• Define, influence, modify and manage research projects and programs in one or more technology alliances;
• Access to over $30M clean room facilities in design, fabrication, test, and reliability for alliance testbeds to demonstrate the critical SOP technologies;
  Advanced access to highly cross-disciplinary students, educated in the latest SOP technologies for employment and internships;
• Full participation in PRC's center-wide industry meetings, which review and discuss the latest advances in SOP;
  Opportunity to place a company engineer on campus for enhanced technology transfer, upgrade knowledge and skills, and collaborate on specific research themes of interest;
• Each technology alliance consists of a dedicated team of faculty, students, and research engineers who will undertake research consistent with the member company's need;
• Royalty-free license to intellectual property in the invested technology alliance for the duration of the membership.

SOP Vision at Georgia Tech's PRC back

What is SOP? How is it different from SIP? Unlike today's packaging, which provides wiring to interconnect components on a system-level board, SOP integrates functions. Unlike SOC and SIP, which are expected to lead to partial systems, SOP provides complete system functions such as high speed digital, high bandwidth optical, analog, RF and MEMS in a microminiaturized board.

Research Accomplishments back

The center has more than 10 research areas and more than 50 research projects. In substrate area, it developed pioneering breakthroughs in stacked ultra fine vias, ultra low dielectric constant polymer dielectrics and high modulus, low TCE substrates replacing FR-4 and low PH electroless copper deposition technology. In the RF area, it published groundbreaking results in capacitors and inductors and paved the way for embedded organics for such RF components as filters, switches, antennas and resonators. In the assembly area, it pioneered new reworkable underfills to go with no-flow process. In thermal management, it pioneered synthetic microjet and has begun two-phase ultra-high heat flux removal. In digital, it demonstrated the use of embedded decoupling capacitors for effective suppression of switching noise. In optoelectronics, it demonstrated alignment-tolerant processes and pushed the frontiers in thin film integration of high-speed OE devices for board integration.

Education Accomplishments back

The PRC began to reform microsystems packaging education, which eluded the academic community for decades. It accomplished these through a systematic and comprehensive approach to courses, curricula and degrees at the B.S., M.S. and Ph. D. levels, having enrolled about 300 students at any given time in these and having graduated as many as half of all MSP engineers in the U.S. Additionally, it has authored 4 leading text and reference books in the field for graduate and undergraduates and was the first to offer education programs in SOP technologies for practicing industry engineers.

Industry Partnerships back

The Center has been highly successful in partnering with the entire food chain of companies around the world ranging from systems to materials.