The implications of roadmapping on university research

Until 4-5 years ago, technology roadmaps or “strategies” were carried out by individual large corporations and considered confidential within each company. Their influence on the industry was dependent on the buying power of the individual corporation. Since 1994, many large OEMs have been willing to share data which has made industry-wide roadmaps feasible. Recently, roadmapping has been carried out by consortia or trade groups such as the SIA, Sematech, IPC and NEMI. The content of the roadmaps is provided by the applicable industry segment experts and provides their collective view of future requirements. The roadmaps have had a profound effect on the way government agencies budget their funds and in turn, on university research: first, because university research is often funded by the government; second because industry, as both funders and receivers of university research, is being increasingly guided by technology roadmaps. To a great extent, roadmaps also define the technologies that will be important to future college graduates-at least for the next 5-10 years. Thus, in a sense, they can also be a curriculum aid, in that certain trends and paradigm shifts are identified in the roadmapping activity. Graduate education in electronic packaging per se, can draw heavily on current roadmaps. This paper will describe the process by which the NEMI roadmap was developed; some of the effects the roadmap has already had on government agencies and research priorities; and how it can fruitfully be used to further identify potential curriculums for electronics packaging education