After a long period of online events and social distancing, the 9th Electronics System-Integration Technology Conference, ESTC, took place from September 13 to 16, 2022 in Sibiu, a cultural and industrial center in Transylvania, Romania.
ESTC is the leading conference of the IEEE-EPS (Electronic Packaging Society) in the field of electronic packaging technology here in Europe with more than 350 registered participants from 28 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Naturally, most visitors came from the host country Romania, followed by Germany, the USA, France, Norway, Hungary and Austria.
What were the most important activities during the conference?
Four Professional Development Courses by leading specialists:
- Why is now the right time to start digitalizing electronics manufacturing with an end-to-end holistic solution? - Oren Manor, Siemens Digital Industries Software, Israel
- Advances in Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging (FOWLP) - Beth Keser, Ph.D., Intel, USA & Germany
- Fan-out Packaging and Chiplet Heterogeneous Integration - John H Lau, Unimicron Technology Corporation, USA
- Additive Printed Flexible Hybrid Electronics - Pradeep Lall, Auburn University, Alabama, USA
Poster exhibition
Four workshops on current topics in the automotive industry sponsored by the local company Continental Automotive Systems Sibiu:
- Development of Electronic Braking Systems for Harsh Environment
- Qualification Laboratory - Vibrations in Automotive
- From Innovation to Standardization: The journey towards robust manufacturing solutions
- The path towards Autonomous Mobility and the technologies that takes us there
Further workshops on topics such as:
- Climate neutrality and sustainable electronics
- iRel40 - Intelligent Reliability along the Value Chain
- Nanopackaging
- IPCEI - A Session on Industrial Research on Assembly & Packaging in Europe
- Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap (HIR) Workshop
- University Level Education Activities in Electronics Packaging - Present and Future
There was the opportunity to talk to the exhibitors at individual stands
The ten plenary lectures (keynotes) and a total of 126 presentations by participants dealt with the future of a wide range of technologies and market segments. The breadth of the topics discussed, as well as their focal points, are clearly demonstrated by the prizes awarded for the best presentations:
BEST Paper Award
- 'Metallurgical aspects and joint properties of Cu-Ni-In-Cu fine-pitch interconnects for 3D integration' - Steffen Bickel, Fraunhofer IZM-ASSID, Dresden, Germany
Outstanding Paper Awards
- 'Digital twin as a tool for evaluating and optimizing flow behavior in encapsulating processes' - Lisa Christin Stencel, Siemens AG, Berlin, Germany
- 'Investigation of inorganic encapsulated power modules with enhanced cooling possibilities' - Stefan Behrendt, Danfoss Silicon Power GmbH, Flensburg, Germany
- 'In-situ infrared spectroscopy for chemical analysis in electronic packaging processes' - Corinna Niegisch, Robert Bosch GmbH, Renningen, Germany
BEST Poster Award
- 'New opto-packaging concepts with electrical feedthrough and optic-micro-assembly by using laser direct soldering' - Nils Burmeister, Fraunhofer ISiT, Itzehoe, Germany
Outstanding Poster Awards
- 'Feasibility Study of Magnetically Enhanced Interconnects for Integration of Flexible and Stretchable Electronics' - Daniel Ernst, Institute of Electronic Packaging Technology, Dresden, Germany
- 'Wafer-Level Thin Film Encapsulation for RF MEMS Using SiN/SU-8 Membrane' - Kanaka Joy, Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai, India
- 'Low temperature sapphire to silicon flip chip interconnects by copper nanoparticle sintering' - Xinrui Ji, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Palatul Brukenthal in Avrig - a baroque palace from the 18th centuryTheconference was flanked by an industrial exhibition with 25 exhibitors. The participants also had the opportunity to get to know Sibiu, the European Capital of Culture 2007, and to visit the beautiful summer residence of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal (a baroque palace from 1762) near Sibiu, in Avrig, during the conference dinner. The last day of the conference was dedicated to a company tour at Continental Automotive Systems Sibiu.
The feedback from the conference participants was extremely positive. The ESTC takes place every two years, alternating with its sister conference EMPC, organized by IMAPS. The next and 10th ESTC is therefore being prepared for September 2024 and will take place in Berlin.
