Future applications, will require higher I/O counts, more densification, lower cost, and greater performance. This paper demonstrates why area-array based chip-to-substrate and substrate-to-card interconnections are strategic, particularly solder bump flip chips (SBFC or C-4) and ceramic ball or column grid arrays (CBGA/CCGA), respectively. That is, SBFC are capable of high pin counts coupled with high yields, performance, and reliability. Moreover, recently introduced CBGA/CCGA interconnections provide substantial benefits over standard pin grid array (PGA) packages. Also, CBGA/CCGA packages possess the highest density achievable at the card level when utilized in conjunction with SBFC-mounted die.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>