HERNDON, Va., Aug. 14 -- The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI) is undertaking several new initiatives aimed at focusing industry efforts on issues that must be resolved for photonics components to be implemented in electronic assemblies.
   "Optoelectronic components offer significant capacity advantages for generating, transporting and manipulating emerging broadband multimedia networks that will carry voice, data and video," said Alan Rae, vice president of technology for NEMI member Cookson Electronics. "Today, however, what we have is a strong long distance fiber backbone that is like a superhighway without many off-ramps. In order to migrate the technology to the local area, which requires as much as 100 times more equipment per mile of fiber, we will have to transform the industry and reduce costs dramatically. Numerous assembly issues must be addressed before optoelectronic components will be cost-effective in volume production of electronic systems. NEMI is dedicated to bringing together its members to address many of these issues and challenges."
   NEMI is currently organizing an Optoelectronics Technology Integration Group (TIG), to be headed by Rae. Projects are still being defined, but are expected to focus on: design rules for large, high-frequency circuits; test equipment and fixtures; accelerated reliability testing; package standardization.