An interview with Peter Ongley, Chairman of iMAPS UK

Citation

(2006), "An interview with Peter Ongley, Chairman of iMAPS UK", Microelectronics International, Vol. 23 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.2006.21823cab.018

An interview with Peter Ongley, Chairman of iMAPS UK

An interview with Peter Ongley, Chairman of iMAPS UK

Keywords: Interview, Microelectronics, Conferences

During the MicroTech Conference held in Cambridge on March 7 and 8, Microelectronics International took the opportunity of interviewing Peter Ongley, the new iMAPS UK Chapter Chairman. A brief interlude in a busy three days (Plate 1).

MI. How would you describe your first year as Chairman of iMAPS UK?

PO. Challenging, time-consuming but I have to say that especially in the last quarter, very rewarding. What has struck me is the enormous complexity of the task, getting acquainted with the interface with European Liaison Group, the area which has dominated the time over the year, understanding the history, the politics, etc. But I have been very fortunate in having on the committee several members who have been enormously supportive, such as Professor Nihal Sinnadurai and Steve Muckett, who have made my life very much easier. The balance between one’s responsibilities to the Institute and to one’s own business and domestic life is a fine balancing act, and I have gone through a long learning curve!

MI. How do you see your second year panning out?

PO. The second year should be that much easier, I hope. In terms of achievements, well, we set ourselves the task of raising our profile which has been reasonably successful with the advent of the new Newsletter, and we aim to develop this by getting the microelectronics industry to contribute more to it. It is after all there for their benefit. It is a shame that we were unable to maintain our former relationship with Emerald and Microelectronics International Journal, but we know now of the reasons why it was not possible and this has just made our own Newsletter that much more relevant and valuable. In my opinion communication is key for success!

MI. Is there not a trade journal in the world that is linked with iMAPS?

PO. The only focused trade journal left is the American journal Advancing Microelectronics (AM) which does not do microelectronics justice in Europe. It is more focused on Asia and North America. So the Newsletter may go bigger, fatter and quarterly, and we may well go down the commercial route to enable this to be done. Our web site is developing nicely, and the chat forum is working well, and will be linked with the European web site.

MI. Do iMAPS have any other publicity material?

PO. Our own web site which now links to a European web site is developing nicely and the chat forum is an added vehicle for members to liaise freely (see www.imaps.org.uk).

MI. Looking at the undoubted success of MicroTech 2006 here in Cambridge, it is interesting to note that you have delegates from all over the world; it is not by any means a parochial conference. Is this any different to what iMAPS do in other areas?

PO. We do have a European Microelectronics Packaging Conference in Europe (EMPC) which is held every two years. In 2005 it was hosted by the Benelux Chapter in Bruges and in 2007 it will be in Finland, where the iMAPS Nordic Chapter are taking their turn. Our next turn to host the European Conference is 2011. There have also been other conferences held by the “emerging” European regions called the European Microelectronics & Packaging Symposia (EMPS) this year being held in Slovenia.

MI. Do all of the Eastern European countries each have their own iMAPS Chapters?

PO. Pretty much. You should have a look on the home page. As it is alphabetical, you will se that the UK comes last, and Benelux comes first!

MI. Are there any link between iMAPS in Europe and the EU in Brussels?

PO. No formal link as yet, but we have a new member, Tony Howard, who volunteered to join the committee as our direct main link with the ELC and thence to Brussels.

MI. How do you attract younger members?

PO. iMAPS UK has been actively promoting iMAPS amongst the younger engineers, at schools and at universities; we are now seeing a lot of good young people coming through. Professor Chris Bailey at the University of Greenwich has been a huge help and he is very instrumental in spreading the word about iMAPS through the University network.

MI. Is there a student rate for membership fees?

PO. Yes, and we also have a rather special Student Prize award, which is awarded annually. On our database we have some we have 40-50 university contacts. We wrote to them all informing them of the award, and the advantages that such a prize might bring to a student, and we received not a single response! It is always a little irritating that when we hold our conference here in Cambridge, we always send out invitations to faculty heads at the University to attend free of charge, but no one ever comes. The companies in Cambridge come, but not the universities. And where was the origin of so many of these companies? Cambridge University! Maybe we will hold our next MicroTech in Oxford and see what happens there! But in terms of general membership, we now have 4-5 committee members, headed by Andy Longford, who have taken on the duties of recruiting new members.

MI. Do iMAPS UK partner with other organisations?

PO. Yes, we are beginning to collaborate with the SMART Group, and also the IEEE, where Prof. Nihal Sinnadurai has been great. Also Chris Bailey, so we are starting to see where such “marriages“ work well to mutual advantages; we all have our specialties and they invariably overlap. Other links are with the Intellect Initiative through the UKEA, and more recently we are establishing more local relationships such as SETSquared in the South West.

With that we “overlapped” with the beginning of the afternoon session. Thank you Peter.

For more information on iMAPS look up: www.imaps.org.uk or E-mail: imapsuk@aol.com