Guest editorial

Citation

Skwarek, A. (2020), "Guest editorial", Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 65-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/SSMT-04-2018-042

EMPC/IMAPS 2017 Poland

The International Microelectronics and Packaging Society (IMAPS) Poland Chapter was established in September 1982. In the beginning, it was the ISHM-Poland Chapter and, from 1997, it became the IMAPS-Poland Chapter. The IMAPS is a non-profit making organization whose aim is to spread knowledge relating to hybrid microelectronics; a key technology in the assembly and application of semiconductors, thin film circuits and printed circuit boards (PCBs) to form practical miniaturized electronic equipment. In 2008, the IMAPS joined with the IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology (CPMT) Society, bringing into formation the IMAPS-CPMT organization.

The 21st European Microelectronics and Packaging Conference, EMPC 2017, was organized together with its satellite conference, the 41st IMAPS Poland International Conference, under a common message “Where West meets East”. This joint event took place between the 10 and 13 September 2017, and it was organized by members of the IMAPS Poland Chapter. The scope of the Conference covered everything in electronics between the chip and the system. The Conference was attended by 226 participants, including 165 guests from abroad. During the conference, 5 keynote lectures, 87 invited lectures and 57 posters were presented. The conference was supported by five international journals indexed in Journal Citation Report or Web of Science databases.

This year, as in the previous year, two young scientists have been recognized and awarded a refund of their conference fees for the next IMAPS 2018 Poland Conference.

In this special issue of Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, nine papers have been collected, covering the processes and procedures associated with PCB technology. All of them were subjected to the journal’s regular reviewing procedure.

The first four papers by Illés et al., Géczy et al., Górecki et al. and Dziurdzia et al. describe different aspects of vapour phase soldering (VPS) technology. The fifth paper (by Aasmundtveit et al.) discusses solid–liquid interfusion, a low temperature bonding technique used for acoustic assemblies. Lykova et al. then analyse the implementation of organic self-assembled monolayers as protective coatings for Cu/Cu diffusion bonding. Krammer et al. report on the influence of squeegee attack angle on the quality of solder paste printing. In the eighth paper, written by Hanss and Elger, the residual free solder process was characterized by thermo-gravimetric analysis. Finally, in the last paper, Drabczyk presents a new method of silver electrode screen printing for copper electrodeposition.

I would like to thank all the authors and the reviewers for their scientific work and contributions that have led to the development and publication of this special issue of Soldering & Surface Mount Technology. I hope that it will be of interest to readers of the journal and that it will help them to find novel solutions, contribute to the creation of new ideas and initiate many varied discussions about PCBs and related interconnect technologies. I believe that this branch of science should be further effectively developed in the future.