Livermore, California–FormFactor, Inc., a provider of complete wafer-level semiconductor test and packaging solutions, recently licensed its wafer-level packaging and test processes to Germany’s Infineon Technologies AG. Infineon plans to use the technology to simplify its manufacturing and reduce back-end process costs, including using it with 300mm wafers. In addition to the licensing agreement, Infineon has invested $5 million in FormFactor.

“Back-end processing costs are a large and growing percentage of our overall DRAM costs,” says Dr. B. Vasquez, senior director of Infineon’s Memory Products, Integrated Assembly, and Test. “As a long-time FormFactor probe card customer, we have been very impressed with the capabilities of their MicroSpring contacts, and our investment in the company demonstrates Infineon’s confidence that FormFactor’s innovative wafer-level packaging represents an opportunity to revolutionize the industry’s approach to back-end processing. FormFactor’s technology holds the potential to simplify our test, burn-in, and packaging process, and offers wafer-level scaling for back-end processing that is important as we prepare for 300mm fab productions.”

FormFactor licenses its wafer-level back-end technology to semiconductor manufacturers, as well as packaging and test contract service providers.