All That Glitters

Semiconductor Packaging Materials, Armonk, NY


1. First stop on the All That Glitters tour was Semiconductor Packaging Materials in Armonk, NY – worldwide manufacturers of metal-based electronic packaging materials. Left to right: Diane Donnelly, national sales manager, Advanced Packaging; Paul Nikac, VP of operations, SPM; Charles M. Italiano, engineering manager, SPM; Meredith Courtemanche, assistant editor, Advanced Packaging; Anthony Grodio, director of operations, SPM; Vito Tanzi, VP of sales, SPM; and Françoise von Trapp, managing editor, Advanced Packaging.
Click here to enlarge image

null


2. Lester Williams, assistant manager, rolling/cladding department, demonstrates the process of cladding copper strip with aluminum.
Click here to enlarge image

null


3. SPM custom fabricates tools for stamping precise and uniform parts, and has over 4,500 different die designed to customer specifications.
Click here to enlarge image

null


4. Solder preforms, braze alloy preforms, bond pads, clad material substrates, and heatsinks are just some of the stamped parts manufactured by SPM.
Click here to enlarge image

null


5. Tanzi explains the cold working process in which wire is drawn, in successive passes, through a die that is slightly smaller than the diameter of the rod to achieve the desired diameter.
Click here to enlarge image

null


6. Heavy-gauge aluminum wire is pulled through a mill, annealed, and spooled to create aluminum ribbon used for ribbon bonds on high-power packages.
Click here to enlarge image

null


7. A spool of fine gold wire goes through an optical inspection before shipping to the customer.
Click here to enlarge image

null


8. A tape-and-reel packaging machine is loading tape with aluminum-clad copper bond pads, positioning the parts to land copper-side down, so they are ready for the pick-and-place tool.
Click here to enlarge image

null


1. At Heraeus’ Contact Materials Division in West Conshohocken, PA, representatives joined us from all corners of the world. Back row: left to right are Jack Ding, manager CMD-AM Dept., Heraeus Material Technology Shanghai Ltd.; Christina Kistler, manager of marketing services, Heraeus; Chris Platt, publisher, Advanced Packaging; Paul Niemczura, manager of technology development, Heraeus; Sonny Zielinski, production manager. Front row: Courtemanche; von Trapp; Hans-Werner Hagedorn, corporate R&D manager, assembly materials, W.C. Heraeus, Hanau, Germany; Rick Lathrop, manager, applications and customer support for SMT and semiconductor products; Donnelly; and Bob Collopy, digital media manager, Advanced Packaging.
Click here to enlarge image

null


2. Ron Bacon, QC technician, prints paste for analysis.
Click here to enlarge image

null


3. Krupali Patel, chemist, uses infrared spectroscopy to measure inorganic compounds through substantive analysis.
Click here to enlarge image

null


4. Lathrop explains the Benchmarker II test board for testing lead-free performance of various materials in different applications.
Click here to enlarge image

null


5. Lathrop designed a special nozzle adaptation for a pick-and-place tool to handle miniscule copper preforms.
Click here to enlarge image

null


6. This environmental control unit (ECU) allows Lathrop to test materials in different environments.
Click here to enlarge image

null


7. Lathrop explains coplanarity to von Trapp, against the backdrop of the May 2005 Advanced Packaging cover, featuring a wafer bump stencil he designed.
Click here to enlarge image

null


1. At Kulicke & Soffa’s world headquarters in Fort Washington, PA, Christian Rheault, VP ball bonder business unit; and Paul Reid, product marketing director, equipment division, brought us up to speed on K&S corporate strategy and plans for the next-generation bonding tool, now in development. Left to right: Rheault; Courtemanche; Donnelly; von Trapp; Reid; Vince McTaggart, product manager; and Platt.
Click here to enlarge image

null


2. Jon Brunner, senior process engineer, demonstrated wire bonders in the applications lab, showing us how the Ultra forms ball to wedge and stitch bonds.
Click here to enlarge image

null


3. Virginia Motta, metrology technician, uses a Dage cold pull tester to measure the amount of pressure it takes to shear the ball off the bond pad.
Click here to enlarge image

null


4. Wafer-level stud bumping for flip chip uses the same technology as forming the first bond of gold ball bonding. This tool can create 36 standard bumps/sec.
Click here to enlarge image

null


5. Zhijie Wang, Peter Lister, Paul Sucro, Gordon Tang, vision software engineers, are working on the next-generation tool.
Click here to enlarge image

null


6. Horst Clauberg, Ph.D., senior scientist, demonstrates how he uses a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to check ball placement position on a bond pad.
Click here to enlarge image

null


7. Courtemanche, von Trapp, and Donnelly share a Kodak moment with Scott Kulicke, chairman of the board and CEO, Kulicke & Soffa.
Click here to enlarge image

null

POST A COMMENT

Easily post a comment below using your Linkedin, Twitter, Google or Facebook account. Comments won't automatically be posted to your social media accounts unless you select to share.