Impacting electronic package design by validated simulations

Numerical methods are being used extensively for predicting mechanical and thermal response of electronic interconnect systems and packages. New challenges are being faced as the regime of predictable response is being expanded. These new challenges can range from incorporating complex time dependent material response prediction, interconnect reliability prediction to micromachined sensor response to extreme environmental inputs. Very often we are treading close to the unknown or predicting response by making certain assumptions and simplifications that enable us to make the predictions. Being aware of these assumptions and verifying the regime of uncertainty then is fundamental to simulation validation.