Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1293772
42 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2020 Feature Interview by the I-Connect007 Editorial Team Nolan Johnson and Andy Shaughnessy met with Rich Rice of Advanced Semiconductor Engineering to discuss the automotive chap- ter of the IEEE HIR. Rich describes how the automotive technical working group (TWG) put together the chapter, including what they found to be critical for the automotive seg- ment. Nolan Johnson: First, tell us about your back- ground and involvement with the automotive chapter of the HIR. Rich Rice: My current job is with Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE). I worked on the packaging assembly and test side for 17 years. Before that, I worked at Amkor, National Semiconductor, and a couple of other gigs. Pri- marily, my background has been in IC packag- ing. I'm involved with the automotive TWG. Johnson: Automotive is a big market driver for PCBs. Perhaps you could give us an overview of the automotive chapter, as well as some observations or analysis. For example, what are the key factors of interest to the PCB man- ufacturing community? Rice: When it applies to the circuit board industry, it's probably more inference than a direct reference in our chapter because we talk mostly about semiconductor packaging and its derivatives, which could be considered system in package (SiP). Johnson: One of the things that struck me, for example, is the discussion about interposer design, which is rather new to the semicon- ductor segment. It's a sort of PCB inside the package. Rice: To a certain extent, yes. But it's super high density. It's almost silicon scaling level or at least silicon back-end metal scaling. Johnson: That raised the question for me whether there is a lateral career opportunity for a PCB designer. What are the interactions here? Rice: In general, the electronic architectures in automobiles are changing because of a couple of things. One is the increase in autonomy, or at least partial autonomy, being designed into The HIR Hits the Road With the Automotive TWG