"MEMS/MOEMS Packaging" is an unusual, perhaps even a deceptive book. It might be mistaken for only a broad technology survey, covering in detail the present state of MEMS packaging. Under that guise, Dr. Ken Gilleo provides a well-structured explanatory tour, beginning with the engineering fundamentals of microelectronic packaging, and progressing through MEMS materials, fabrication, packaging, and challenges, to the new tools of nanotechnology. More than two hundred citations provide further details.

The first two chapters, covering packaging fundamentals and MEMS fabrication, concisely summarize the present art and applications. Chapter three, by far the longest in the book, takes us deeper, into MEMS challenges. Here lurk all of the demons and dragons: packaging "free space," stress and stiction, fluidics and RF shielding, optical clarity and dimensional stability, and that will-o'-the-wisp, hermeticity. Each is discussed, and strategies to cope with each are detailed.

The following two chapters on MEMS packaging processes and materials are more earthbound. But the final chapter, taking us across the bridge from microspace to nanospace, leads us into the future. Dr. Gilleo carefully defines the borders of those two kingdoms, marking where they might meet, and where they might forever be separate. Gilleo's imagination and clarity of thought here make him a stellar guide in showing how today's packaging technologies fail to solve tomorrow's problems.

Clearly, Dr. Gilleo is not a tourist viewing the packaging world; he is an active explorer. He uses his survey of proven packaging technology as a springboard to the unproven. His focus often shifts from the present to the future, from what has been done to what yet needs to be done, and how it might best be approached. "Should" and "could" are the vocabulary of an explorer or a prophet, not of a mere surveyor.

His creative suggestions are based on a single proven premise: we cannot develop optimal packaging for MEMS and MOEMS by simply following the packaging paths that worked well for silicon chips with no moving parts. New approaches are needed. "Finding better packaging solutions" is the real subject of this excellent book.

REVIEWED BY: George Riley, FlipChips Dot Com

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