Category Archives: Materials and Equipment

(November 9, 2010) — Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: KLIC) introduced the IConnPS ProCu wire bonder optimized for copper wire bonding. The K&S IConnPS ProCu offers a significant and new level of capability for packaging lines transitioning from gold to copper wire bonding.

This is the latest addition to the Power Series product line, which offers high accuracy over a large bondable area for advanced packaging. It employs a combination of precisely designed new hardware, an optimized gas delivery system, and powerful new process controls to provide the most advanced system available for copper wire bonding. Specialized copper processes, ProCuBond and ProCuSSB, address the many challenges of bonding copper wire while delivering higher productivity. New process tools and features make the complex capabilities easy to use. A new cover gas delivery system enables a wide process window with less gas consumption. High precision gas regulation, metering, and filtering enables production stability.

In addition to wire bonders, K&S has been delivering innovative capillary solutions for fine copper wire bonding. The latest offering is the CuPRA3GTM, which delivers excellent bondability, extended life span, and workability with any copper wire type.

The IConnPS ProCu is currently being qualified with customers. Initial production shipments to customers are anticipated this quarter.

Kulicke & Soffa (NASDAQ: KLIC) designs and manufactures semiconductor and LED assembly equipment. Learn more at www.kns.com

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(November 9, 2010) — The Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore, launched the Copper Wire (Cu-Wire) Bonding Consortium. The consortium will tackle existing Cu-Wire bonding issues of quality and reliability, and improve existing measurement systems. This joint effort will be spearheaded by IME in collaboration with multinational companies including ASM Technology Singapore, Freescale Semiconductor, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific, UNISEM and Atotech S.E.A.

Copper wire bonding has emerged as an important alternative in the semiconductor supply chain as compared to traditional gold wire as it is cheaper and has better material properties. However, a recent World Gold Council/SEMI survey disputes this assessment. In addition, conventional techniques are presently unable to adequately measure wire bonding stress, which should ideally be kept low to reduce chip damage during wire bonding.

Through this initiative, IME will fill the gap in current techniques by developing micro-sensor based methodology to measure the wire bonding stress and perform reliability characterisation of wire bonds. These novel sensors will allow the measuring of the stress beneath the wire bonding pad, catalysing the investigation of potential wire bond damage, and identifying a reliable bonding process for copper wire, including bond pad structures and metallisation. Further, the consortium will also cover corrosion study and bond degradation study related to copper wire bonding in harsh environments.  

"This consortium will further strengthen IME’s relationships by bestowing its members with the competitive advantage of possessing the most advanced knowledge in copper wire bonding and package reliability characterization, facilitating the adoption or fine tuning of such techniques," said Pinjala Damaruganath, deputy lab director of IME’s Microsystems, Modules and Components (MMC) Lab.

"GLOBALFOUNDRIES supports the Copper Wire Bonding Consortium in its efforts to develop an in-depth understanding of the impact of Copper Wire Bonding on chip/package interaction and its failure mechanisms," added Dr. Sanford Chu, VP for technology development and research at GLOBALFOUNDRIES in Singapore, adding that the competitive pricing of Cu compared to the standard practice of using Au is one of the main motivations to optimize packaging costs without compromising quality.

The Institute of Microelectronics (IME) is a research institute of the Science and Engineering Research Council of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). Positioned to bridge the R&D between academia and industry, IME’s mission is to add value to Singapore’s semiconductor industry by developing strategic competencies, innovative technologies and intellectual property; enabling enterprises to be technologically competitive; and cultivating a technology talent pool to inject new knowledge to the industry. Its key research areas are in integrated circuits design, advanced packaging, bioelectronics and medical devices, MEMS, nanoelectronics, and Silicon photonics. For more information, visit http://www.ime.a-star.edu.sg.

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is the lead agency for fostering world-class scientific research and talent for a vibrant knowledge-based and innovation-driven Singapore. For more information, please visit www.a-star.edu.sg

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(November 5, 2010 – BUSINESS WIRE) — Dow Electronic Materials, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) has broken ground for a new metalorganic precursor manufacturing plant in Cheonan, Korea.

The construction of Dow Electronic Materials’ new Korea plant is part of a multi-phase plan announced in June 2010 to expand TrimethylGallium (TMG) production capacity to meet the surging global demand for the material in the LED and related electronics markets. The facility is expected to be operational in early 2011.

Capacity expansion in the United States at existing facilities is also progressing as planned, with new capacity expected by the end of 2010 and continuing through the first quarter of 2011. Total additional capacity resulting from the multi-phase plan is expected to be 60 metric tons per year.

“Meeting our customers’ near-and long-term needs for high-quality materials continues to be a priority for us,” said Joe Reiser, global business director, Metalorganic Technologies, Dow Electronic Materials. “The construction of our new facility in Korea illustrates our commitment to investing in expansion and having supply capabilities close to our customer base in Asia.”

TMG is a metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) precursor material that is critical to the manufacture of LEDs and other compound semiconductor devices. Exceptionally high-quality materials and precise delivery of metalorganic precursors are essential to building reliable LEDs.

The new metalorganic precursor plant in Korea will be located in Cheonan, approximately 85 kilometers south of Seoul. Dow Electronic Materials currently manufactures TMG and other metalorganic precursors in North Andover, MA, while packaging is done in both North Andover, MA, and Taoyuan, Taiwan.

Dow Electronic Materials supplies precursors to the LED market and has patented precursor manufacturing processes and delivery technology. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

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(November 3, 2010) — Bare die in yarn, comfortable electronics, stretchable interposers, washable photovoltaic clothes, and other elements will be on the table for the PASTA project to bring smart textiles from the lab to industrial manufacturability. Imec leads the program.

Imec and its project partners announce the launch of the European FP7 (Framework Program) project PASTA (Integrating Platform for Advanced Smart Textile Applications) aiming at developing large-area intelligent textiles. Large-area manufacturability is an essential aspect in bridging the gap between lab prototyping and the industrial manufacturing of smart textiles for sports and leisure wear, technical textiles for safety and monitoring applications, and textiles for healthcare monitoring purposes.

The PASTA project will combine research on electronic packaging and interconnection technology with textile research to realize an innovative approach of smart textile. By introducing new concepts for electronic packaging and module interconnect, a seamless, more comfortable and more robust integration of electronics in textile will be possible. The main technological developments will concentrate on a new concept for bare die integration into a yarn (by means of micromachining), a new interconnect technology based on mechanical crimping, and the development of a stretchable interposer serving as a stress relief interface between the rigid component and the elastic fabric. The technologies will also be assessed in a functional evaluation and reliability testing program. The proposed solutions for integration of electronics in textile will cover a whole range of components, from ultra-small LEDs to complex multichip modules. Moreover, a system design task will tackle the power distribution and system partitioning aspects to provide a complete solution for integration of a distributed sensor/actuator system in fabric.

Four applications areas will be addressed by the project. For outdoor sports and leisure wear, luminous textile with integrated photovoltaic cells will be developed. Moreover, washability will be addressed, as this is an essential aspect of intelligent clothes. PASTA will also explore a bed linen application with an integrated sensor to monitor humidity and signal excessive humidity due to bed-wetting. Two home-textile safety applications will be addressed by integration of building evacuation markings using LEDs. And last, a fabric will be developed which allows non-destructive in-situ monitoring of accumulated stress in composites to predict the residual life-time and to indicate damage of industrial components.

PASTA is a 4-year project, coordinated by imec, and will build on the results of the very successful STELLA project (FP6) and the extensive textile know-how in the consortium. Industrial as well as academic players will bring their expertise to the project: project partners are imec (Belgium), CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives), PEP (Association Pôle Européen de Plasturgie), Sport Soie SAS (France), Fraunhofer IZM, STFI (Sächsisches Textilforschungsinstitut), ETTLIN Spinnerei und Weberei Produktions GmbH & Co KG, Peppermint Holding GmbH (Germany) and CSEM – Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (Switzerland).

Imec performs world-leading research in nanoelectronics. Further information on imec can be found at www.imec.be.

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(November 2, 2010) — A team of researchers at the University of Warwick has found molecular hooks on the surface of graphene’s close chemical cousin, graphene oxide, that will potentially provide massive benefits to researchers using transmission electron microscopes (TEM). They could even be used in building molecular-scale mechanisms.

The research team, which includes Drs. Jeremy Sloan and Neil Wilson and PhD student Priyanka Pandey from the Department of Physics and Dr. Jon Rourke from the Department of Chemistry together with the groups of Drs. Kazu Suenaga and Zheng Liu from AIST in Japan and Drs. Ian Shannon and Laura Perkins in Birmingham were looking at the possibility of using graphene as a base to mount single molecules for imaging by transmission electron microscopy. As graphene forms a sheet just one atom thick that is transparent to electrons, it would enable high precision, high contrast imaging of the molecules being studied as well as the study of any interactions they have with the supporting graphene.

Graphene is actually very difficult to create and manipulate in practice. The researchers therefore turned to Graphene’s easier to handle cousin, Graphene Oxide. This choice turned out to be a spectacularly better material as they found extremely useful properties, in the form of ready-made molecular hooks that could make Graphene Oxide the support material of choice for future transmission electron microscopy of any molecule with oxygen on its surface.

Graphene Oxide’s name obscures the fact that it is actually a combination of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. For the most part it still resembles the one atom thin sheet of pure Graphene, but it also has “functional groups” consisting of hydrogen paired with oxygen. These functional groups can bind strongly to molecules with external oxygens making them ideal tethers for researchers wishing to study them by transmission electron microscopy.

This feature alone will probably be enough to persuade many researchers to turn to Graphene Oxide as a support for the analysis of a range of molecules by transmission electron microscopy, but the researchers found yet another intriguing property of these handy hooks — the molecules attached to them move and pivot around them.

Dr Jeremy Sloan says that, under the right conditions, the functional groups provide molecular tethers that hold molecules in an exact spot and allow the molecule to be spun in that position. This opens up a range of new opportunities for the analysis of such molecules but could also be a useful mechanism for anyone seeking to create molecular sized "machinery."

The research paper, "Imaging the Structure, Symmetry, and Surface-Inhibited Rotation of Polyoxometalate Ions on Graphene Oxide" is published in Nano Letters and is by Dr Jeremy Sloan, Jonathan P. Rourke, Neil R. Wilson and Priyanka A. Pandey from the University of Warwick; Zheng Liu and Kazu Suenaga from National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Research Centre for Advanced Carbon Materials, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Japan; and Laura M. Perkins and Ian J. Shannon from the University of Birmingham.

The research was funded or supported by the University of Warwick’s Warwick Centre for Analytical Science funded by the EPSRC, the Royal Society, the Science City initiative funded by Advantage West Midlands, AIST and had access to equipment from the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford.

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(November 2, 2010) — Endicott Interconnect Technologies Inc. (EI) added LCP Laminates to its family of microelectronics packaging product offerings. Custom-designed LCP Laminates are suitable for semiconductor packages as LCP coreless designs for up to 6 layers as well as in combination with other rigid materials as hybrid circuits. Development and testing of Z-interconnect cross-sections for >8 layer offerings are also underway.  

EI’s innovative, adhesiveless, film-based LCP Laminates provide high-density interconnection with proven reliability and performance. Beginning with Rogers ULTRALAM 3000 series materials, EI fabricates, tests, and assembles its LCP Laminates into advanced microelectronic packages including flex and chip-on-flex, offering a complete solution from design through test of the product.

The low dielectric constant and low dissipation factor of LCP provide superior electrical performance across a wide range of the RF spectrum and it remains stable even under harsh environmental conditions such as extreme temperature and humidity. Couple that with tolerance to high levels of radiation exposure and LCP becomes an excellent solution for Aerospace & Defense applications such as microwave and digital circuits for communications and radar, satellites, munitions and avionics.  Because it is biocompatible for use in the human body and near-hermetic due to low moisture absorption, LCP is also attractive for Medical applications such as implantable devices. When designs require the advantages of size, weight and power (SWaP) reduction and flexibility, EI LCP Laminates provide an excellent cost/performance ratio for users looking to make the jump from ceramic packages to an organic solution or any application requiring a system-in-package (SiP) approach.

"EI is committed to developing new processes, technologies and techniques that enable progress in the electronics industry. We fabricate LCP products and perform reliability testing of the structures we create, assisting our customers with the design ground rules of this technology," stated Voya Markovich, SVP of R&D and CTO at EI. "Our test results have been excellent, allowing EI to supply complete solutions with proven reliability," he continued.

For more information on EI LCP Laminates, contact Endicott Interconnect Technologies at www.endicottinterconnect.com.

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(November 1, 2010 – BUSINESS WIRE) — To increase the performance and service life of light emitting diodes (LEDs) and LED assemblies, Momentive Performance Materials has introduced a new line of thermally conductive silicones to be considered for use in LED manufacturing and assembly. Available as the TIA series of curable thermal gels and adhesives and TIS series of curable thermal compounds, the new products may help LED lighting manufacturers solve the ongoing challenges of heat transfer and dissipation in LED lighting assemblies.

Momentive’s TIA thermal gels are liquid-dispensed materials for heat dissipation, available in a variety of thermal conductivity levels, viscosities and curing profiles to meet a wide range of design needs. The new gels, which include TIA221G and TIA216G, may extend the service life of LED light bulbs by helping manage the heat generated by drivers used to regulate voltage. Since drivers are 3D and typically housed inside a light bulb fixture, a liquid-dispensed thermal material that can conform to the assembly’s design and flow into the cavity, creating a heat path from the driver to the fixture, is generally required. The TIA series can fill gaps between the driver and surrounding fixture and cure at room temperature or by accelerated heat cure to create a soft elastomer. This creates a thermal path while providing the added benefit of absorbing thermal stress due to its softness.

For designs requiring mechanical adhesion, the TIA thermal adhesives, which include the TIA250R and TIA600R products, are available in room-temperature and heat-accelerated cure formulations that adhere well to various substrates. Thermal adhesive TIA0220, for example, offers corrosion-free adhesion to most metals (including copper), plastics, ceramics, glass and other surfaces without the use of primers.

The TIS series of thermal compounds, which includes TIS380C, cures at room temperature and can be considered for use in minimizing thermal resistance in LED lighting assemblies. As soft thermal interface materials (TIMs), these thermally conductive compounds can help provide stress relief for delicate components as well as extremely low oil bleed and volatile contents, attributes that contribute to stability in high-temperature environments.

Momentive’s TIA thermal gels, adhesives and compounds can be considered for use to create a thermal path between the LED board and heatsink, which helps protect the LED from heat emission. The TIA products are all liquid-dispensed, allowing for an exact amount of material to be applied to precise locations and assembled to create a thin bond line. This contributes to overall efficiency in heat transfer. The new products are available in thermal conductivities ranging from 1 ? 6 Watt/m.K, and depending on the grade, they can be applied by dispensing or screen/stencil printing.

Momentive Performance Materials Inc. provides silicones and advanced materials. Momentive Performance Materials Holdings LLC is the ultimate parent company of Momentive Performance Materials Inc. and Momentive Specialty Chemicals Inc. (collectively, the "new Momentive"). Additional information is available at www.momentive.com.

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Robert de Neve,
E Systems Technology, Mountain View, CA USA

For over 20 years, semiconductor original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have outsourced the production of their equipment to offshore contract manufacturers (CMs) in an attempt to leverage the lower operating costs of the region and improve their proximity to their end user customers. As cost, communication, and logistics problems have increased, OEMs have been rethinking this strategy, however, and searching for alternative sourcing solutions. Add to this the increasing complexity of OEM products and concerns about intellectual property (IP) theft, and you have increasing demand for an entirely new approach to outsourcing; one that focuses on increased technical competency and IP protection.

What’s needed is a new approach to sourcing and a new type of OEM supplier, one that departs from the current model of CM-based offshore outsourcing to a new paradigm of OEM-level offsite outsourcing that integrates ALL of the above functions into a single, low cost, high quality "Made-in-the-USA" solution for OEMs in the semiconductor equipment industry. This new paradigm must include the following elements: OEM-level capability, IP protection, and product life-cycle protocols.

As new OEM products become more complex, the need for OEM suppliers to provide highly technical solutions increases considerably. Traditional CMs fall short when product management, critical component sourcing, and systems integration services are required. This is because CMs are service-based companies with little or no product development and management experience; the very capability today’s OEMs require from these suppliers.

OEMs wedded to the offshore approach to outsourcing battle a wide variety of competitive and IP-related problems. Having to send engineers out to the traditional CM to offset the supplier’s lack of product-based skills is a prime example. This has negative effects on the OEM in terms of lost opportunity cost when engineers spend more time on supplier development than product development back at the factory. The risk of spawning new competition, if the supplier is located in a region where patent and IP laws are weak or non-existent, increases considerably as the CM can now take their new found skills and launch a competitive company.

A new CM paradigm is clearly required. PLC-based manufacturing strives to solve the current problems faced by OEMs looking to keep IP safe, costs down and quality up as they build ever more complex systems. PLC manufacturing is next in a long line of production system paradigm shifts, from craft-based production in England, to mass production as pioneered by Henry Ford in the U.S., to the much vaunted lean manufacturing techniques developed by the Toyota Production System. The strength and value of PLC manufacturing allows the supplier to apply sourcing, engineering, and manufacturing solutions based on the status of the OEM’s product within the PLC. In other words, whether the OEM’s product is in the early life (pre-release), mid-life (released), or late life (post-release) phase of the life cycle, the PLC-based manufacturing system has an appropriate solution. Leveraging suppliers with OEM experience and PLC compatibility helps the OEM mitigate risk and maximize product performance.

The power of PLC manufacturing lies in its ability to adapt to the needs of the OEM and interface with the in-house product development and operating systems, while providing IP security and guaranteeing the OEM that cost, quality, delivery and support requirements are met. PLC manufacturing and OEM-capable suppliers are a new approach to contract manufacturing as defined by OEMs for OEMs.

Robert de Neve is president & CEO of E Systems Technology, 1305 Terra Bella Ave., Mountain View, CA 94043 USA; 650.961.0671 email  [email protected].

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(October 29, 2010) — The VIISta Trident high-current ion implanter from Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates Inc. (NASDAQ: VSEA) enables high-performance, low-leakage devices while improving productivity at the sub30nm wafer fab node.

The VIISta Trident ion implant system is designed to maximize device performance and yield, energy purity, and productivity. Trident anticipates future node requirements with significant advancements in uniformity, angle control and process temperature control.

It maintains high energy purity across all species, doses and energies for even the most challenging recipes. Trident’s advanced beam-line design also provides global and local uniformity and tight angle control.

Trident uses Varian’s Process Temperature Control product, PTC II. PTC II enables implantation while controlling wafer temperature to as low as -100 C. PTC II is running in high volume manufacturing on multiple layers.

Logic, memory and foundry customers are evaluating Trident for advanced nodes. A large Asian manufacturer has qualified and is using Trident in production. Volume shipments will begin in the first half of 2011.

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates supplies ion implant equipment to semiconductor manufacturers. More information can be found on www.vsea.com.

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(October 27, 2010) — The packaged LED market is experiencing tremendous growth with an expected CAGR of 28.2% between 2009 and 2015. Yole Développement and EPIC, both France-based research firms, will publish their new market & technological studies dedicated to LED market and LED manufacturing technologies November 15.

The reports include "Status of the LED industry: SLI 2010, 2008 – 2020 analysis" and "LED Manufacturing Technologies: LED ManTech 2010." This comprehensive survey describes the main market metrics and manufacturing technologies implementing broad adoption of Solid State Lighting. The packaged LED market is experiencing tremendous growth with an expected CAGR of 28.2% between 2009 and 2015. In the analysts’ base scenario, revenues will reach $8.9b in 2010 and grow to $25.7b in 2015 and close to $30b in 2020.

In terms of volume, LED die surface will increase from 6.3b mm2 to 51b mm2 in 2015, a 41.6% CAGR. This will prompt substrate volumes to growth from 12.7M Two Inch Equivalent (TIE) in 2009 to 84.4M TIE in 2015, a 37.1% CAGR (smaller than the die surface increase due to significant manufacturing yield improvements). The equipment market will experiment a dramatic growth cycle with demand driving the installation of close to 1400 reactors in the 2010-2012 period.

“Anticipation of future demand and generous subsidies in China will trigger the installation of another 700-1000 reactors in the same period, leading to a short period of oversupply starting in late 2011. However, this oversupply will mostly affect the low end of the market.”, explains Tom Pearsall, EPIC.

Growth in general lighting applications will be enabled by significant technology and manufacturing efficiency improvements that will help to lower the cost per lumen of packaged LED to be reduced 10-fold between 2010 and 2020: Economies of scale, LED efficiency improvement, including at high power (droop effect), Improved phosphors, Improved packaging technologies, Significant improvements in LED epitaxy cost of ownership through yield and throughput. However, additional breathoughs are needed; Haitz’s Law is not enough. (For nearly three decades from the late 1960s to the end of the 1990s, the light output levels from packaged LED devices have roughly doubled every two years, based on observations and projections by Roland Haitz . Haitz’s Law is similar to Moore’s Law for transistor integration in ICs).

Yole Développement is a market research and strategy consulting firm analyzing emerging applications using silicon and/or micro manufacturing. Learn more at www.yole.fr

EPIC, the European Photonics Industry Consortium, with 80 voting members and over 400 associate members is Europe’s premier photonics industry association. Learn more at www.epic-assoc.com

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