Ironically, at the same time the European Community has said it will not allow the French government to recapitalise Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, the French computer firm announced that the Commission has chosen it to lead an international consortium for a micropackaging Esprit project called Chippack. The 30-month programme, to include IBM France SA, IBM Deutschland GmbH, GEC-Marconi Ltd, SGS-Thomson Microelectronics BV and Telefonica J&D SA, aims to design and produce an operational model to demonstrate the function of the electronic micro-elements in Single Chip Package and Multi Chip Module assemblies. Bull has also been nominated, along with SGS-Thomson, to manage a sub-program in JESSI for micropackaging. The two-year project is 50% funded by the commission and 50% by the French ministry of industry. Karel Kurzweil, Bull’s advanced packaging manager, says the JESSI sub-program aims to produce an ASIC for Unix environments, using Ball Grade Array packaging, by the end of 1994.
