Tiwei Wei, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is the general chair of a symposium at Purdue this November focusing on reliability for electronics and photonics packaging.

The event is called the Symposium on Reliability for Electronics and Photonics Packaging (REPP), held in collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Previous instances of this symposium have all taken place in Silicon Valley, but this is the first time the event will be held in the Silicon Heartland, at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

“Reliability is an overlooked aspect of semiconductor design and manufacturing,” said Tiwei Wei, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, and general chair of the event. “We want to bring together electrical, reliability, materials, mechanical, and computer engineers and applied scientists to address the state-of-the-art in all the interconnected fields of electronic and photonic packaging.”

The event is part of Purdue University’s persistent pursuit of semiconductor excellence, as part of the Purdue Computes initiative. In 2020, the University launched the nation’s first comprehensive degree program in semiconductors. In April 2024, South Korean company SK hynix Inc. announced plans to build a nearly $4 billion advanced packaging fabrication and R&D facility in the Purdue Research Park.

Wei’s research focuses on advanced semiconductor packaging and heterogeneous integration, including processing, materials, architecture development, chip-package interactions, reliability, and efficient thermal management technologies.  He has led a team on a $1.8 million project from ARPA-E to develop a confined two-phase microjet cooling to help make data centers more energy efficient; and serves as a co-PI on a $1.5 million NSF grant focusing on 2.5D glass interposer packaging and thermal cooling solutions for next-generation wireless systems. Wei is also collaborating with Thomas Beechem to investigate the stress reliability issues for submicron 3D interconnects, under the support of Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC).

His work takes place at Birck Nanotechnology Center, which recently hosted a visit from NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan and U.S. Senator Todd Young to inaugurate $100 million of upgrades focusing solely on semiconductor research.

“It’s not just the facilities that makes Purdue the perfect place to discuss semiconductors,” said Wei. “The faculty and administration are focused on the future, and have created an environment where we can all collaborate on this most vital technology. That’s why I’m so excited to welcome my colleagues from around the world this November.”

The IEEE Symposium on Reliability for Electronics and Photonics Packaging (REPP) will be held November 7-8, 2024 at Purdue University. Abstracts are now being accepted at https://attend.ieee.org/repp. Abstracts or proposals should include a title and a summary of 200-500 words with one or two optional figures or diagrams, clearly showing the relationship of the talk to the topics of the symposium. Travel grants of $1,000 are available for graduate students presenting their work. Deadline to submit abstracts is August 15, 2024 (acceptance of proposed presentations will be announced by August 20, 2024).

Source: Tiwei Wei, wei427@purdue.edu