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116 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2023 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE Article by Pete Starkey • I-CONNECT007 T hursday's Special Session on Advanced Packaging attracted enor- mous interest, with Conference Room 2 at capacity long before the session began. Even with lots of extra seats squeezed around the edges, the session was standing room only for the just-in-time arriv- als. IPC Chief Technology Officer Matt Kelly opened proceedings by introducing a dis- tinguished panel of experts: Jan Vardaman, president and founder of TechSearch Inter- national; Sam Salama, CEO of Hyperion Tech- nology; Matt Neely, director of process engi- neering at TTM Technologies; and Jim Fuller, VP of engineering technology at Sanmina. In his opening remarks, Kelly reflected upon the changes happening in semiconductor technology, which he believes will notice- ably disrupt the industry over the next five to seven years. Kelly shared the declaration, "Advanced packaging is the new king," bor- rowed from Todd Younkin, president of Semi- conductor Research Corporation, who had spoken at IPC's Advanced Packaging Sym- posium in Washington, D.C., last fall. And the session panelists echoed this similar phrase: "Everything follows silicon." Their sentiment was that this is now a cardinal rule, as global and regional supply chain shifts advance at different rates in North America, Europe, and Asia. Unfortunately, North America is lagging well behind and urgently needs to catch up to other regions. Japan leads the way in substrate capability and capacity, followed by South Korea and Special Session: Advanced Packaging