Packaging, Function, Size, and Power Die/Package Implications for Ultra Mobile Consumer Platforms

Theodore Scardamalia, Portelligent, Inc.

The cell phone continues to be one of the primary drivers for the electronics industry, delivering major functional improvements while reducing size, power, and cost. Multiple wireless interfaces, megapixel cameras, MP3 players, video recorders, and more are appearing in these mobile platforms, while their volume has been significantly reduced and the battery life significantly increased when compared to preceding products. These dramatic advances have been made possible by new semiconductor and packaging technologies, improved low power design, and denser systems design and integration. Using Portelligent’s product teardown database of consumer-oriented mobile products, we will demonstrate how the advances in packaging technologies and silicon integration have impacted these Ultra Mobile Consumer Platforms (cell phones to digital cameras). Trends in aggressive bare-chip and multi-chip packaging as seen in recent teardowns will be reviewed along with the implications of these trends for future products.

iMr. Scardamalia has over 35 years of experience in VLSI/Custom chip design, software development, advanced packaging technologies, and advanced systems design and development in both large corporations and start-up companies. Joining Portelligent in May of 2005, he currently serves as the Director of Product Analysis. Prior to Portelligent, he gained his extensive technical and business experience through a 24 year career at IBM culminating as Senior Manager of the Advanced Technology Development Group for the RS/6000 Workstation Division. Since leaving IBM in 1994, Mr. Scardamalia has served as the Austin Design Center Manager for Cadence’s Spectrum Design Services Group where he directed multiple design and packaging efforts. In 1999, he co-founded venture funded Times N Systems, Inc., developing advanced high performance computer systems. He received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Akron.