Michel Villemain, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, Presto Engineering

Driven by the rebounding world economies and ongoing improvements in semiconductor technology, our industry will see both great opportunities and significant challenges in the year ahead. Suppliers participating in the value chain will face key decisions.

For example, how will they increase domain-specific expertise — especially in the areas of CSP, system-in-package (SiP) and 3D through-silicon via (TSV) technology — to meet the continually tighter development schedules?

The adoption cycle for these new packaging technologies will need to balance the demands for smaller and smaller footprints of end-user products with the significant new challenges of testing, reliability and, most important, failure analysis and fault-isolation.

Successful chip companies will need to engage outside expertise for these services very rapidly to meet product-launch schedules, and this can be done most effectively by collaborating with product-engineering service organizations with the necessary expertise, equipment and capabilities.

Presto Engineering has been delivering these services to the semiconductor industry for the past three years from its Silicon Valley Hub. As of February, these product-engineering services are now also available to the European semiconductor industry from its new lab in Caen, France.

By outsourcing comprehensive testing and analysis functions, chip companies can reduce costs, speed time to market and sharpen their focus on their core business.