Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1299286
10 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2020 Feature Interview by the I-Connect007 Editorial Team In Part 1 and Part 2 of this conversation, Rita Horner of Synopsys provided a general over- view of the IEEE Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap (HIR)—a document that provides guidance for IC, PCB, and package designers, broken down by industry segment and perfor- mance requirements. Rita also shares her per- spective from the IC side, as well as how the HIR might affect what happens on the PCB de- sign and manufacturing side in the next few years. Here, we share the final segment of this interview series. Happy Holden: In creating a roadmap, the IEEE is talking about the needs over time for perfor- mance and then trying to expose the gap. The HIR isn't telling us the solution, but it is telling us what is needed and what we have to work with from right now going forward. The vari- ous chapters explain where each part of the industry is right now. Our interest in it is we know that people have made the silicon inter- posers work, but they can be expensive, so you have glass coming up because of its density, low cost, and very large panel size. Right now, common PCBs are getting to be 50- and 60-micron geometries. Twenty years ago, that was semiconductor geometry, but now it's PCB geometry. Ten years from now, we may be talking about PCBs that are micron or sub-micron geometry because it all just keeps rolling down the hill. Rita Horner: Right. People need to participate. Like any other standard, it's contribution-driv- en. If you are interested in a certain market space—like 5G, aerospace, or high-perfor- mance computing—join those groups to pro- vide input and learn. Every one of these mar- kets has different needs. They face various levels of trade-offs between technological and economic challenges that HIR is trying to ad- dress for that market space. The HIR is work- ing on a roadmap. As Happy said, they're not giving an answer; they're just saying where the market is, what the market needs are, and what some of the challenges are. In terms of 5G, it's very new. Since 5G took so long, it had a lot of challenges, and I would