Founding member and manager of Microsystems Packaging Technology Services group for my current employer. It is my charge to structure the group so that it will eventually become an "expert" team that will make first contact with customers and help guide a product from design stage to mass production. It is also my charge to define the group responsibility to serve current technological needs of the company without hindering on the future goals of the group.

The mission of the group is to provide technologies needed to package microsystems. MPTS is a group formed to initially service many internal groups. Eventually, the role of the group will be expanded to offer high precision packaging design service directly to customers.

To achieve its mission, MPTS is active in three areas:

MPTS is one of a few groups within the company that has research as one of its mission. Researches engaged by the group can be divided into these categories:

Surplus machine resources controlled by the group are used in conducting research in manufacturing process improvement. Other groups using our services are asked to contribute general knowledge they learned from manufacturing their products. Any discussion held is geared specifically to packaging design and technology with a careful safeguard to customer specific intellectual properties.

MPTS group is also involved in collaborative works with component packaging vendors and equipment manufacturers. Many of these collaborative efforts involve new-to-the-market or under-development products. For example, the group is currently serving as a manufacturing advisor and prototyping house for a new packaging design for high-speed laser device.

Knowledge learned from the research done by the group is continually being compiled into a manual. The immediate goal is to keep the manual proprietary but eventually to release it for intra-company distribution.

MTPS group controls and maintains packaging equipment that is shared among different products. The process specialists within the group provide training to engineers and operators so that they can develop competencies in packaging process and operation. All personnel using the equipment provided by the group are certified in that process and equipment after they complete their training.

Unlike most engineering groups within the company, MPTS is structured as a knowledge group not a product group. This allows the group members the flexibility of helping out other product groups on temporary basis. By accepting temporary assignments, the core group gains competency in packaging technology without being tied to a particular customer, product, or technology. Another advantage of this flexibility is to allow the group to work directly with potential customers and new-product engineers to provide process development or prototyping services.

The plan is for MPTS to eventually expand to cover all the technologies needed to manufacture subassembly-level, component packaging. Currently, MPTS only covers some of the main operations in packaging such as die placement, electrical connection, mechanical testing, and connectorized housing. These operations enable accurate placement of micro-components, connection among components, and mechanically complete a microsystem package.

Almost all of the equipment belonging to the group is advanced, automated equipment. The main working machines owned by the group are die bonders, wire bonders, and laser welding systems from leading equipment manufacturer such as Karlsuss, Palomar, and Newport. All equipment is capable of achieving 10 micron precision or better. This is the level of precision beyond what is usually needed for electronic devices or consumer optics. The equipment belonging to the group represents the highest level of precision technologically feasible in a high-volume packaging of MEMS and optoelectronic devices.