In order to acknowledge outstanding personalities in the field of advanced packaging the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM has established its "IZM Special Award".

At the SMT/HYBRID/PACKAGING 2002 Dr. Phil Garrou of Dow Chemicals was honoured for his pioneering role concerning the introduction of new packaging materials, namely thin film polymer BCB, into industry. The use of polymer BCB in microelectronic and photonic applications has enabled or accelerated new developments in market segments such as wafer level packaging, flat panel displays and GaAs chips for telecommunications.

Phil Garrou and his team at Dow Chemicals together with scientists at the Fraunhofer IZM started work on low cost wafer level packaging using BCB in 1995. In national and international projects they have developed it into a worldwide standard over the last years. The setting up of SECAP (Semiconductor Consortium for Advances Packaging) has given a further impetus for the transfer of BCB into industrial production. Last year the first 300 mm back-end processes could be successfully demonstrated to international customers at the Fraunhofer IZM.

On June 19, Fraunhofer IZM has taken the opportunity of the SMT Conference and Industrial Fair in Nürnberg to honor Phil Garrou for his contribution to the development and successful market introduction of BCB and to officially acknowledge the long-standing successful cooperation with DOW in a festive celebration.