An apparatus and method for monitoring andor controlling cryogenic cooling by measuring the opacity of the vapor cloud generated from a cryogenic cooling device. The package includes a carrier, a chip, a plurality of wires, an adhesive and a cover. The detection circuit detects a voltage of each of the battery cells in the battery module, and feeds the detected voltage to the communication circuit. The method also includes the step of determining whether the packet is to be sent to a remote CPU for further handling, and sending the data packet to the remote CPU if appropriate. A third engine, responsive to the attenuation component and the relative permittivity parameter, performs a least squares analysis to determine a loss tangent parameter associated with the substrate over the specified frequency range.