Daniel F. Baldwin, Ph.D., Founder, Engent

2010 promises to be a strong year with respect to next generation packaging solutions for small form factor electronics systems as a result of prior years development efforts. With the improving economy, semiconductor companies are showing positive returns and are beginning to turn on the capital funding faucet once again.

Military and Homeland Defense budgets are defined and beginning to solidify, and while we are a long way from pre-2006 levels, we will see increasing programs in this market.

Additionally, our Industrial and Medical market place has continued to drive innovation as their new product launches cut through economic pressures. As a result, we see increased spending in the Medical, Military, and Industrial markets with a strong push for 3D integration and tighter geometries to accomplish smaller, faster, and lighter solutions.

The stagnant economy caused more dollars to be spent in the development cycles in 2009, which we are now seeing launch into production. The applications that require performance enhancements will lead the way out of the downturn by offering product features that will compel customers to ramp up their spending.

We have also seen a resurgence of mission critical products being built in the US again. The drive to meet new product requirements has allowed a US manufacturing solution to be a viable option and provide a better overall value as a total solution.

New designs are pushing the envelope on size and performance and are requiring burst development to production cycles which can be sometimes more efficiently executed in a stateside one-stop shop solution. This requirement forces a tight collaboration of supply chain partners working in consort to develop and deploy solutions that push the leading edge.

These technologies will quickly benefit the mainstream applications in the years to come as the packaging technologies get pushed across a larger landscape of applications.

The economy is not completely out of the woods yet as tight lending capital, high unemployment and Worldwide instability in foreign countries GNPs and currency are still daunting measures of a slow recovery.

Regardless, Engent is positive on the economic recovery, as such, Engent plans another year of growth and expansion as we have experienced every year since our inception.