Interconnection Group, Loughborough University

People development

We consider that a key role of the group is to develop engineers and scientists that are able to meet the industrial challenges of the future by developing innovation skills and other technological competencies and be able to transfer these to industry and appropriate parts of academia.

A number of former post doctoral workers in the group are now employed in the electronics manufacturing industry in Psion (Dr Richard Gibbons), ISL (Dr Mehrdad Kalantary), Terahertz Photonics (Dr John Goward), Philips CFT Singapore (Dr K C Teo) and Cambridge consultants Ltd (Dr Kevin Tilley). Four former contract researchers of the group now have university lectureships (David Hutt, David Whalley, Paul Conway and Andrew West) and one is a lecturer at King's College, London (Dr Samjid Mannan).

The group's work has also been recognised by the award, in 1994, of the Thatchers Brothers prize and a Donald Julius Groen prize of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for the paper*. The group has also had a significant role in the definition of the EPSRC Initiative, Electronic Product Design and Manufacturing which directly resulted from a national workshop organised by the group in May 1994. Dr David Williams (now technology director at Bespak) has participated in the audit of national electronics research programmes for the national agencies of GINTIC, Singapore; TEKES, Finland; MITRAS Sweden; and EOLAS Ireland. David Whalley is also founding UK and Republic of Ireland Chapter Chairman of The IEEE Components Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society.

The group is also the home of the Journal of Electronics Manufacturing and the Soldering and Surface Mount Technology Journal and group members are on the editorial boards of Microelectronics International and the IEEE Transactions on Electronics Manufacturing.

* Williams, D.J., Conway, P.P. and Whalley, D.C., ''Making Circuits More Than Once: The Manufacturing Challenges of Electronics Intensive Products'' , Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers , 207 , 1993, pp 83-90, ISSN 0205-1904 .

e-medic seeks to explore the technological and business potential of integrating advanced electronics and information technologies with improved drug formulations into non-invasive drug delivery devices, and their exploitation to maximum benefit in healthcare. A platform device is researched based upon a pulmonary delivery system that is flexible, programmable, and potentially will provide remote patient monitoring through a distributed healthcare information system.

This project focuses on the development of a lead-free joining technology using metal droplets. Technological developments must not overlook environmental health and safety concerns. Traditional joining methods have often used solders of Pb-Sn composition, which are now intended to be phased out. Thus, novel processing methods must be sought to overcome this problem and provide a cleaner more effective solution.