Yole Développement has released a new report, Permanent Wafer Bonding, detailing permanent bonding technologies and the microelectronic applications that use permanent bonding such as MEMS, Advanced Packaging, LEDs and SOI substrates. Forecasts through 2019 are given for market size, wafer starts and equipment usage by application and technology.

Their analysis shows that MEMS devices are the main applications using permanent bonding technologies in mass production, followed by CMOS Image Sensor BSI (CIS BSI). They conclude that fusion bonding is the most frequently-used permanent bonding technologies in today’s semiconductor industry, mainly supported by CIS and SOI substrate applications.

Permanent wafer bonding revenue was close $127MM in 2013 and expected to reach $450MM by 2019, growing at a 23% CAGR.

In the next few years, growth is expected from metal bonding for MEMs applications and Cu-Cu / oxide “hybrid bonding.” All major players are working on the implementation and qualification of this technology for the new generation of BSI CIS.

Yole projects that permanent bonding, which is well established for MEMs,  will continue to grow over the next five years while moving from glass frit technology to metal bonding for  better reliability, better hermaticity and smaller footprint due to smaller required bond frames.

Permanent bonding for CMOS sensors is dominated by adhesive and fusion bonding. Adhesive bonding is used for attaching the glass cap wafer to the device wafer. Fusion bonding, with anneal temperatures in the range of 20 – 400 ◦C, is the dominant technology for BSI sensor technology. In the future Yole sees Cu-Cu /oxide hybrid bonding, such as that developed by Ziptronix, as the technology of choice to replace fusion bonding due to its superior electrical and mechanical properties.

For LEDs grown on GaAs or sapphire substrates thermo-compression and eutectic bonding are most often applied.

Fusion bonding is the technology of choice for SOI activities.  While the recent SOI market has been flat, due to AMDs recent move from SOI to bulk SI technology, Yole expects the SOI market to double by 2015 due to Rf applications making use of SOI.

EVG currently holds 75% of the permanent bonding equipment market. Yole sees them being challenged in the future by the recently combined TEL / Applied Materials. TEL has gained market share in 2013. Suss MicroTec, exited the market in 2013 after supplying permanent bonders for more than a decade.

Companies cited in this report include: AMD, AML, Applied Materials, Avago, Bosch, Discera, EVG, Infineon, Invensense, Lemoptix, Luxtera, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Murata/VTI, Nemotek, OSRAM, PlanOptik, Samsung, Sensonor, SOITEC, STMicroelectronics, SUSS MicroTec, Sony, Teledyne/Dalsa, Tokyo Electron, Ziptronix, IMEC, Leti, Texas Instruments, Tezzaron, WiSpry and Ziptronix.

The report was written by Amandine Pizzagalli who is responsible for equipment and materials for Yole’s Advanced Packaging team.