On Monday (12 February) the 2007 3GSM World Congress commenced and by the time the doors close on the world’s premier mobile event on Thursday (15 February) it is expected that over 60,000 visitors will have frequented the Fira de Barcelona Conference and Exhibition Center. Socially the event got off to a great start with a star-studded party on the opening night featuring appearances from top international music artists including Jamelia, one of the UK’s most successful pop stars.


And commercially, the event is aiming to hit the right too. Billed as ‘The place to do Business’ with the mobile industry the event offers a wide and challenging agenda that encompasses cutting edge innovation, the embryonic mobile entertainment market, technology evolution and the fast moving developments of emerging markets that will drive the immediate success of the mobile industry.

The impressive conference program boasts five keynote sessions featuring the leaders from some of the world's largest and most dynamic operators, vendors and content owners. There are three streams on each day: CEO Strategies for Growth, the Technology Symposium and Mobile Entertainment Summit. The Innovation Forum, a new introduction in 2006, showcases the most innovative companies of the year.

Those innovative ideas are being showcased at the 3GSM Exhibition, where the number of exhibitors has increased to over 1300 as leading players in all sectors of the mobile industry congregate in this unique global village. Two new features for 2007 are the Mobile Entertainment and Content Zone, which is self-explanatory, and the Demonstration Stage, which is an exciting showcase for the best of new and existing product/services from within the mobile ecosystem.

Those from our industry who have visited the exhibition this week will have noticed that those particularly active in the microwave and RF arena are the test and measurement, semiconductor and chipset manufacturers. Microwave Journal will report on the major news and product announcements from the show floor in a 3GSM 2007 Web Excusive to appear on www.mwjournal.com in March. Log on then for more information.

The cluster consists of academia, government research labs and industry, and is focused on commercialization opportunities in MEMS packaging. The UACJ research facility will use SUSS’s SB6e semi-automated wafer bonder, BA6 bond aligner and FC150 device bonder to develop and advance MEMS prototyping processes in Mexico.

“The SUSS products are key acquisitions for our laboratory,” said Jose Mireles, professor at UACJ. “By providing precision wafer bonding processing technology in a semi-automatic format, the SB6e Bonder is the perfect solution for engaging in research and at the same time facilitating technology transfer to a full-scale production setting. Also, the FC150 device bonder’s versatility for flip chip and MEMS bonding is ideal for research in today’s hybrid packaging. We thank the funding from the Economy Minister of Mexico, as well as the endless support for pushing the MEMS Technology initiative in Mexico by the Mexico-US Foundation for Science.”

In reply Michael Kipp, president, Wafer Bonder Division, SUSS MicroTec USA, commented, “Packaging and test are critical steps for MEMS devices, since much of the product cost is associated with these two operations. We are pleased to support the University of Juarez as they work to promote MEMS packaging technologies in Mexico.”