BOSTON – A group of standards-writing stalwarts are behind a new consortium that seeks to coordinate various electronics industry roadmaps from semiconductor chips through finished products.

The Coalition for the Advancement of MicroElectronic Systems Technology (CAMEST), an independent organization, seeks to foster collaboration among the global electronics industry, academia and government, the group’s founding leader says. It will hold an open meeting to set plans and developed a charter May 21 during the IPC Electronic Systems Technologies Conference in Las Vegas.
 
“We have a chopped up supply chain: chips are made one place, laminates in another, boards in another, the whole assembly in a fifth or sixth place,” explained Denny Fritz, coalition strategy leader. What CAMEST will attempt is to fill the gaps of the various trade associations’ technology research efforts, and communicate redundancies to improve efficiency, he said. “Can we be a consortium organizing other consortia? From the roadmaps, we would glean the gaps: Has etching run out of steam? What will we do about halogen-free materials in the future? What do we need from laminates in the future? And if someone has worked on it, as long as it is publishable, can we help keep others from working on it?”
 
The core of CAMEST is made up of the engineers and marketers once involved in Jisso North America Council, the Japanese-influenced group established in the late 1990s to harmonize standards covering interconnecting, packaging, component mounting and system integration.
 
The original Jisso Council reported on technology, markets, and environmental matters of anything related to chips through finished packages. That effort fizzled, however, as international members became less forthcoming with publishable data.
 
“Jisso isn’t something anybody [in North America] knows, but in Japan they have big events,” Fritz said. And while European companies tend to support participation at the IEC standards level, the US takes a different approach, tending to be content with IPC specifications. “We needed to do something different than we had been doing under Jisso,” Fritz added.
 
Another difference is the membership model. Jisso was a completely voluntary organization with no real revenue stream. CAMEST is looking at different models, but hasn’t chosen one yet. One possibility, Fritz said, is that of the Institute of Circuit Technology in Great Britain, which permits individual and corporate membership.
 
Still, the new Council will seek to complement, not compete, with existing organizations, Fritz said. “We’re just trying not to step on anyone’s toes, and coordinate wherever possible.”
 
Fritz said that for now, CAMEST is keeping its objectives manageable. “Our intent is not to take grants or drive research projects but simply be glue between the other stuff that’s going on.” He suggested that the Council might produce an annual report based on what the members see.