Redefining the Economics of Mcm Applications

The economics governing the decision to design and integrate MCMs into products is often limited to comparison of the associated material costs. In many cases, MCM material costs exceed that of the discretes and integrated circuits which it could potentially replace. Such narrow focus has contributed to a stifling of the MCM technology explosion. Equitable comparisons must be made through a full stream system analysis with consideration given to feature enhancement, overall yield, labor, load and warranty impacts on the end product. MicroInterconnect Technology is an extension of traditional MCMs in that integration of functions can result in space and performance improvements. However, when ICs are flipped to a silicon substrate containing active and passive devices, component count decreases significantly and the critical system performance metrics, are further improved. At AT&T-Shreveport, small business telephone systems are manufactured to compete with other "commodity" vendors in the world market. Success in this high volume environment requires aggressive cost management and achievement of reliability levels consistent with consumer expectations. The Partner/sup R/ Product Management Team will be the first to integrate flip-chip, silicon-on-silicon, MicroInterconnect MCM technology by 2Q94. Successive cost reductions will be enabled with the introduction of MicroInterconnect Technology which positively affect system cost and performance.