Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1489269
8 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2023 Nolan's Notes by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 Advanced Packaging "Is multifurcated even a word? I hope so because that's what it looks like in advanced packaging." —Chuck Bauer Chuck Bauer is well known as an expert in semiconductor packaging. He's also the orga- nizer of the SMTA Pan-Pacific Conference, so a chat over lunch with him is time well spent. He asked me that question over lunch as we were discussing how new packaging methods were making their way into industrial usage. Well, Chuck, according to multiple online dictionaries, multifurcated means to be multi- divided or forked off from a common source. Your observation is astute. Advanced packaging is not new to our cov- erage. Over the past two years, we've written about the heterogenous integration roadmap (PCB007 Magazine, October 2020), as well as reported on the October 2022 IPC Advanced Packaging Symposium in Wash- ington, D.C. is is a topic wherein printed circuit manufacturing a n d s e m i c o n d u c t o r manufacturing begin to converge. A s w e p r e p p e d t h i s i s sue f or pub licat ion , I noted Taiwan-based TSMC announced its decision to increase its semi- conductor investment in its new Arizona facility from $12 billion to $40 billion 1 . Nearly simultaneously, Apple announced its inten- tion (along with AMD and NVIDIA) to use the U.S. manufactured chips in their products 2 . is news makes for good public relations events, but there is still that nagging issue: a lack of packaging services in the U.S. to sup- port those chips. As it stands, it seems that all the silicon from TSMC Arizona will still be shipped to Asia for packaging. Two trips across the Pacific, it seems to me, is a longer supply chain, not a shorter one. No wonder packag- ing capabilities are a common area of discus- sion when the topic is semiconductors. Regular readers of the IPC Government Relations newsletter, as well as announce- ments from USPAE and PCBAA, are all too aware that there is plenty of news here. In fact, in a Dec. 16, 2022, article from IPC's Chris Mitchell titled "IPC Goes Deep on Advanced Packaging in 2022," you learn that while the mainstream media is actively covering this story, they don't fully grasp the idea that semi- c o n d u c to r s a r e t h e headwater s of the stream that leads to a working piece of technology in their home. Indus- try experts will tell you that advanced packaging comprises R&D and manufacturing. So, outside of Asia, any con- versation about advanced packaging necessar- ily includes discussion of the technology and the supply chain pretty much simultaneously. Nevertheless, all this dialogue in the news