TABLE OF CONTENTS Steve Anderson
Silicon Bandwidth, Inc.
It is clear that today s world is focused on miniaturization, with the result that the convergence phenomenon is increasingly evident in markets, technologies, and interconnect. As the markets are converging among computing, communications, and consumer devices and applications, the convergence is creating an entirely new category of lower-cost, high-volume Internet or portable information appliances. The convergence likewise drives an unprecedented increase in both the volume of new devices and the actual rate of introduction of new devices. The results are major changes in the way that semiconductor packages are developed, introduced, and customized.
With the advent of voice-over-IP, or digital voice telephone traffic over the Internet, it has become increasingly difficult to separate the standard telecommunications markets and companies from the emerging data communications markets and their associated companies. The startling increase in numbers of startup firms and home-based businesses with Internet capability has leveled long-standing barriers between large and small businesses, furthering the impetus for these smaller enterprises to purchase and effectively implement new, attractively cost-effective technologies. The quick price decline in these technology products has moved the decision point for many electronics goods out of the corporate environment and into the hands of consumers, whether the new products are destined for personal or business use.
Semiconductor technology has provided the...
