System technology challenges facing the PC industry

Personal computers continue to achieve performance levels that exceed those exhibited by mainframes and minicomputers only a few years ago. As in the case of mainframes, these performance gains are coupled with significant increases in power dissipation, electromagnetic emissions, and tighter requirements for power delivery and high speed signaling. In contrast with big computers, however, PCs have very tight cost constraints and high volume manufacturability expectations. These requirements call for commoditized packaging approaches which render conventional solutions either unaffordable or inadequate. Therefore, the accelerating performance trends for microprocessors, chipsets, graphics, memory and other subsystems present a challenge to develop multidisciplinary packaging solutions in which universities could and should play a key role.