"The total EU electronics industry employs ≈20.5 million people, sales exceeding €1 trillion and includes 396,000 SMEs. It is a major contributor to EU GDP and its size continues to grow fuelled by demand from consumers to many industries. Despite its many positive impacts, the industry also faces some challenges connected with the enormous quantity of raw materials that it needs for sustainability, the huge quantity of Waste Electrical, Electronics Equipment (WEEE) generated and the threat of competition from Asia. To sustain its growth, to manage the impact of WEEE and to face the competition from Asia, the industry needs innovations in key areas. One such area is the drive for ultra-miniaturisation/ultlra-functionality of equipment. Achievement of these twin drivers can reduce raw material requirements, reduce WEEE and deliver a competitive edge to the European industry, moving it up the value chain to high value added and high margin products. The key current road block/limitation to achieving the goal of ultra-miniaturisation/functionality is how to increase the component density on the printed circuit board (PCB). This is currently limited by the availability of hyper fine pitch solder powder pastes. Hypersol aims to deliver solder pastes with solder spheres <10μ to enable PCB manufacturers to more than double the component density on the PCB. In layman’s terms, this would effectively enable more than a doubling of the functions available on your cell phone, satellite navigation system, MP3 player and of course the ubiquitous lap top computer which could soon become a palm top computer. The successful completion of the HYPERSOL project would lift the ultra-miniaturisation/functionality road block and in the process also enable reduction in raw material usage, reduction in WEE, reduction in pollution and associated health costs and also a major reduction in EU energy demand with all its indirect benefits for environment and society."