IEEE’s Romanian SIITME Show a Success

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

The 23^rd annual IEEE International Symposium for Design and Technology in Electronic Packaging (SIITME) was held in Constanta, Romania, October 26-29, 2017. It attracted more than 190 participants from Romania, and 13 other counties. While there might be some who question the suitability of Romania as a venue for such a conference, the country has a long technological history and has produced some top innovators and pioneers in aviation including Aurel Vlaicu, Traian Vuia, Henri Coanda (who prototyped an early jet aircraft in 1910), and great engineers like Anghel Saligny, and George Constantinescu, a pioneering scientist credited with developing the theory of sonics.

The convention was created to bring together members of the electronic packaging community from near and far to discuss technology developments and needs. Ongoing efforts by the organizers have been intensified over the last decade in their effort to bring together academia and industry to share knowledge and experiences. The SIITME conference creates a shared environment where students, teachers, and senior researchers present their latest works and interact with industry representatives who highlight the state-of-the-art in the industry.

As Professor Dan Pitica of the Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Romania, observed, “SIITME is more than a just a conference. The Association for Promoting Electronics Technology, APTE, succeeded in bringing together eight top international professionals to give keynote talks including Klaus-Jurgen Wolter (Technische Universitat Dresden, Germany), Gheorghe Brezeanu (Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania), Stefan Techau (ASM Assembly Systems GmbH & Co KG), Frederic Kratz (National Institut of Applied Sciences INSA, Centre Val de Loire, France), Joseph Fjelstad (Verdant Electronics, USA), Jose Sartori (OSRAM Opto Semiconductors), Etienne Sicard (INSA Toulouse, France), Radu Sporea (Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK), and many specialists from Continental Automotive, Tecnometal (Italy), ES Srl Electronic Solution (Italy), SEM Communication & GEST Labs SRL (Italy), Comtest, Miele Tehnica, NTT Data.”

To focus on the future, the first day of the event was dedicated to the Industrial Workshop “Advanced Interconnection and Disruptive Technologies, Debate for the Future Sustainable Electronics Packaging.” This event was moderated by industry representatives Cosmin Moisa, Continental Automotive Romania; Stefan Techau; Paul Svasta, University Politehnica of Bucharest; and myself. Topics included the reliability challenge for the electronic products, front-end assembly capability, managing PCB supplier challenges, and CETTI’s early steps in exploring Occam technology were also discussed.

To read this entire article, which appeared in the December 2017 issue of The PCB Design Magazine, click here.