**1.1. Microelectronic packaging**

Microelectronic packaging is a multidisciplinary branch of materials engineering that deals with the study of various interconnecting materials, electronic components packaging from chip level to final board level, for example, computers, cellphones, notebooks, laptops, and iPads. It also includes a method of joining various components to the respective substrates, as well as reducing their weight/volume for faster processing, multifunctionality, and portability.

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In olden times, various wires and cables are used to connect the different components into an electric box. With the passage of time, printed circuit boards (PCB), or printed wire boards (PWB) invented near 1950s as a great revolution among electronics industries. Moreover, the invention of transistors and integrated circuits (ICs), analog-to-digital electronics in 1947 made luxurious life style of the common public. This technology of interconnecting various IC's and other electronic component devices like transistors, capacitors, inductors, and resistors within circuits over a PCB substrate to form a compact electronic device is known as microelectronic packaging.[1, 2] The common packages in a personal computer are shown below (Fig. 1).

**Figure 1.** Micropackaging assemblies inside a personal computer.
