Comparing Past Board Assembly iNEMI Roadmaps to Technology Outcomes

This project compares past board assembly roadmaps with actual technological outcomes. Its conclusions are mixed: some aspects that the roadmaps covered were very accurate, while others could use improvement. This paper also draws general conclusions on the outline and readability of the board assembly roadmaps. These roadmaps were given to Dr. Lasky and me at no cost from Marc Benowitz, the CEO of iNEMI, for the purpose of this project. This paper examined the progression of predictions across seven significant aspects of board assembly covered in the 1994, 2002,2007, 2013 and 2017 roadmaps: 1) Conversion Costs, 2) NPI Cycle Time, 3) Component Trends, 4) Solder Paste, 5) Bar Solder, 6) Wave Solder Flux and 7) Die Attach Adhesives. Conversion costs were quantified across the 1994, 2002 and 2007 roadmaps and were found to be accurate, if not conservatively estimated (see Figure 5). Even the estimate in the 1994 Roadmap for 15 years out was within 0.05 cents of the actual technological outcome per I/O. NPI predictions were found to be extremely accurate quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The area with the most discrepancy between the roadmaps' predictions and actual technological outcomes is in component trends. Maximum I/O density, minimum pitch for area array packages and chip speed placement were all overestimated markedly, especially in the earlier roadmaps. It should be noted that there are discrepancies between these roadmaps, but this project aims to bridge these discrepancies in a comprehensive fashion to better inform iNEMI for future roadmaps.