Category Archives: Packaging and Testing

November 15, 2011 — Nanotechnology accelerator SVTC Technologies partnered with SUSS MicroTec on wafer-level packaging (WLP) for micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) and 3D IC bonding.

The companies will focus on developing "new processes and solutions in the field of wafer-level packaging," said Frank P. Averdung, president and CEO, SUSS MicroTec AG, noting SVTC’s complementary skill set in research and innovation. The companies will jointly develop and characterize new lithography and wafer-bonding technologies.

SUSS MicroTec consigned alignment and bonding equipment to one of SVTC

November 10, 2011 — Shanghai Simgui Technology Co. Ltd., a leading Chinese wafer manufacturer, placed a follow-on order for an EV Group (EVG) EVG850 automated production bonding system for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and direct wafer bonding. Simgui is moving from EVG’s semi-automated wafer bonder to advance high-volume SOI production.

Simgui is a spin-off from Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT). It will transfer a well-established production process to the fully automated system. Currently, the company uses an EVG301 single wafer cleaning system with pre-bonding and IR inspection station.

SOI wafers are used to make micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) and microprocessors, as well as other microelectronics.

This order comes on the heels of another EVG install in China: new customer Shenyang Silicon Technology Co. Ltd. (SST) purchased an EVG850LT automated production bonding system for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers in its state-of-the-art SOI production facility this March.

EV Group recently introduced its 450mm SOI wafer bonder.

EV Group (EVG) makes wafer bonding, lithography/nanoimprint lithography (NIL) and metrology equipment, as well as photoresist coaters, cleaners and inspection systems. More information is available at www.EVGroup.com.

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November 8, 2011 — The Heterogeneous Technology Alliance (HTA), a team of leading European technology institutes, is developing new packaging and test methods for micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) targeting space missions.

As part of the Wafer-Level Encapsulation in Microsystems (WALES) project, HTA members are studying how wafer-level packaging (WLP) can be used to connect and protect MEMS devices in hermetically sealed structures to withstand extreme weather and radiation conditions encountered in space. The project also will provide the European Space Agency (ESA), which is funding the project, a simple and fast standardized test to evaluate the suitability of MEMS for space missions.

XRD systems at CSEM.

Also read: NASA technologist talks CNTs, nanowires, PCMs…

Led by CSEM, the project is developing procedures for sealing and testing MEMS WLP for a piezo-electrically actuated resonator from CSEM and a capacitively actuated resonator from CEA-Leti. Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS is applying special measuring and testing processes to guarantee the reliability of these MEMS systems. VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland, will join the project consortium; negotiations are currently under way.

Focused ion beam (FIB) tool at Fraunhofer.

Increased reliability via improved packaging could extend MEMS lifetimes and make them suitable for harsh environments like space missions. MEMS could increase the sensing devices on European space projects while decreasing form factor and costs.
 
The HTA was launched in 2006, bringing together microsystems institutes in an alliance of ideas and joint-development projects with industry partners. Members: CEA-Leti, CEA-Liten, CSEM, Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics and VTT. Visit www.hta-online.eu for more information.

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November 7, 2011 — SEMATECH has created an online 3D Standards Dashboard, allowing 3D semiconductor and MEMS interconnect professionals to exchange standards activity information. This Dashboard, managed by SEMATECH’s 3D Enablement Center, will help develop standards in the 3D packaging field with the help of IEEE Standards Association, JEDEC, SEMI, and Si2.

3D heterogenous integration lacks uniform standards for key manufacturing parameters, which are neccessary for an orderly supply chain and high-volume production. Because standards are needed in many areas and over broad technology bases, the Dashboard is designed to improve information sharing, which will accelerate standard development and adoption, and avoid duplication of effort.

Companies involved in 3D production can use the 3D Standards Dashboard to find existing standards as well as to identify and track standards development activities in areas such as design, testing and production. Additionally, the 3D Standards Dashboard provides a proactive forum for facilitating collaborative discussions on perceived gaps in standardization activities and for identifying which standards development organizations (SDO) will best meet the need for a specific standardization activity.

SEMATECH, IEEE, JEDEC, SEMI, and Si2 invite fabless, fab-lite and IDM companies, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) suppliers, and EDA process tool and materials suppliers worldwide to participate by visiting http://wiki.sematech.org/3D-Standards.

Example of 3D packaging standards collaborations:

November 7, 2011 — BUSINESS WIRE — MEMS foundry Micralyne Inc. brought Nanoshift LLC, a product development firm specializing in emerging technologies, on board for design, process development, fabrication and packaging partnerships.

Micralyne has a similar partnership with A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates (AMFitzgerald).

This integrated design and manufacturing approach targets lower entry barriers to micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) device companies looking to commercialize products. The partnership takes Nanoshift from third-party supplier to an "essential part" of the Micralyne business model, said Nancy Fares, CEO of Micralyne.

Fares adds that the partnership approach "minimizes risk and cost" in the transition from proof-of-concept to volume production. The integrated model streamlines market introduction, added Salah Uddin, co-founder of Nanoshift, "moving IP through prototype, design and production." Customers work with a central project manager in the unified approach.

Nanoshift recently licensed Silex Microsystems’ Sil-Via MEMS packaging technology.

Micralyne is an independent MEMS foundry. For more information on Micralyne, please visit: www.micralyne.com.

Nanoshift LLC is a privately held design and development company that specializes in emerging technologies. For more information on Nanoshift, please visit: www.nanoshift.net.

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November 7, 2011 — MEMS foundry Silex Microsystems and MEMS development firm A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates completed a multi-year collaboration on medical and biotech MEMS development. They halved device development time using the Silex Sil-Via platform and AMFitzgerald’s prototyping and design.   

AMFitzgerald worked with Silex Microsystems’ Sil-Via technology platform early in the development process. This grounds-up approach and close collaboration resulted in a 6-month development cycle of several MEMS designs that are now ready to go into volume production in Silex’s advanced 6" and 8" fabs. The projects typically would require a year or more to complete, the companies report.

Also read: Silex MEMS TSV tech licensed to Nanoshift

Silex Microsystems is developing "a partner ecosystem" to accelerate projects like this, said Peter Himes, VP of marketing and strategic alliances for Silex Microsystems. The key was Silex’s "proven, standardized process modules," made accessible to the project developers, said Dr. Alissa M. Fitzgerald, founder and managing member of AMFitzgerald.

AMFitzgerald integrated Silex’s Sil-Via standard through silicon via (TSV) and wafer-level packaging (WLP) technologies in the very first prototypes, identifying and addressing issues early on in the process. This avoided problems during foundry transfer and ramp-up. The Silex Sil-Via platform is a full-wafer thickness via comprised of a DRIE etched post surrounded by an isolating material. The resulting interconnect is low impedance, mechanically robust, and avoids the thermal mismatch of metal-based via technologies.

The companies concluded that array-based sensors, such as imaging or diagnostic arrays that require high-density I/O and small form factors, would benefit the most from the Sil-Via designs and the DfM process. BioMEMS, motion sensors, oscillators, optical sensors and pressure sensors are examples.

Silex Microsystems is a pure-play MEMS foundry. For more information, please visit www.silexmicrosystems.com.

AMFitzgerald offers MEMS product development. Internet: http://amfitzgerald.com/.

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November 4, 2011 — Yole Développement’s new report, "Inertial Combo Sensors for Consumer & Automotive" shows that supply chains need to adapt to the "very large market opportunity" for inertial combo sensors. Inertial combo sensors will see 15% growth in consumer and automotive applications in 2011, hitting $2.6 billion.

Combination sensors are a marginal player now but expected to penetrate 40% of the $2.7 billion consumer inertial market and 12%+ of the $1.1 billion automotive inertial market by 2016. On the consumer side, added motion sensing capabilities in an increasing number of mobile devices are driving growth; for automotive, safety systems — better and in more cars globally — are the main impetus.

Figure. 2009-2016 consumer and automotive inertial sensor market. SOURCE: Inertial Combo Sensors for Consumer & Automotive Report, Yole Développement, October 2011.

Unit sales will continue to grow at double-digit rates in the future. However, price erosion and maturing markets herald a slow decline in revenues. One way to offset this is with more sophisticated sensor fusion that optimized multiple sensors with complex software.

Combo sensors allow device designers to reduce costs and product footprint. Lower-cost units combining multiple micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) sensors will see "healthy growth."  However, Yole warns that the benefits of combo sensors can be application specific, with the dynamism of the evolution of each individual sensor. The trend will start in the mature automotive sector, where cost benefits can be realized in electronic stability control (ESC) systems by combining the accelerometer and the gyroscope in one package with one ASIC. Consumer technologies change much more rapidly, and discrete device prices are still falling rapidly. Once the economics do become compelling for consumer adoption, around 2012-2013, market penetration will be faster and deeper than on the automotive side.

Yole forecasts that new players will enter the market, and sensor management expertise will be in demand.

Dropping prices and new market entrants will change the supply chain, Yole notes, as companies "figure out how best to compete and cooperate for the much bigger business of integrating the silicon sensors into useful functions." The cost of MEMS devices often lies much more in the ASIC, packaging, test, and calibration — as well as software development — than in die fabrication. This rule will only become more visible as companies adopt multisensory packages.

Combo sensors enable interaction between the multiple MEMS die that enhances their individual performance and creates new applications, a melding that is called sensor fusion. This requires much more sophisticated software controls. Players in the MEMS industry can compensate for price declines by selling high-value solutions that include more software content. This added value could benefit the sensor makers supplying the algorithms to combine and cross-calibrate the sensor data and do some standard applications as well as the software and chipset makers that supply higher-level specialty functions. Higher-value software calculations might require an MCU, not the usual ASIC. Makers of microcontrollers, software, and subsystems will start to take over more of the sensor management.

Laurent Robin is in charge of the MEMS & Sensors market research at Yole Developpement. He previously worked at image sensor company e2v Technologies (Grenoble, France). He holds a Physics Engineering degree from the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Toulouse, plus a Master Degree in Technology & Innovation Management from EM Lyon Business School, France.

Companies cited in the report:
Acutronic, Advanced Microsensors, Advancedmicrofab, Aichi Steel, AKM, Alps Electric, Amazon, AMS, Analog Devices, AP M, Apple, ASTRI, Atmel, Autoliv, Baolab, BMW, Bosch, Broadcom, BWI , BY D, Casio Micronics, CEA LETI , Chevrolet, Chrysler, Continental, CSR, Daesung, Dai Nippon Printing, Daihatsu, Dalsa, Deep Di Semiconductor, Delphi, Domintech, Eastman Kodak, EM Microelectronics, Epson Toyocom, Fairchild, Ford, Foxcon, Fraunhofer ISIT , Free / Iliad, Freescale, Fujitsu, FullPower, Futaba, Garmin, GE, Global Foundries, Google, Hana Microelectronics, HDK Kokuriku, Hillcrest Labs, Honeywell, HT C, IMU Solution, InvenSense, IT RI, Jyve, Keynetic, Kionix, Kyocera, Lancia, Lenovo, LG, Lingsen Precision Industries, Logitech, Mando Corp, Maxim, Mcube, Mediatek, Memsic, Memsmart, Memstech, Micro Infinity, Microchip, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Mobius, Mio, Motorola, Movea, Murata, Navteq, Nike, Nintendo, Nissan, Nokia, NT DoCoMo, Nuvoton Technology, Pace, Pacific, Palm, Panasonic, Parrot, Pixart, PointInside, Prolific Technology, Qualtre, Renault, Ricoh, RIM, Rohm, Rood Microtec , Samsung, Schraeder, Seagate, Seiko Epson, Seiko NP C, Senodia, Sensitec, Sensonor, SensorDynamics, SensorPlatforms, Sharp, SiliconLabs, Sitronix Technology, Skyartec, SMK , Sony, Sony Ericsson, SPIL , SSS, ST Microelectronics, Sunrex, Systron Donner, Takata, Technitrol, TI , TMT, TomTom, Toshiba, Toyota, Tronics, Trusted Positioning, TRW, TSMC, Universal Electronics, Virtus Advanced Sensors, VTI, Wacoh, Western Digital, Wolfson, Wolkswagen, XSens, Yamaha, Yishay Sensor, ZillionTV , ZTE …

Yole Développement is a group of companies providing market research, technology analysis, strategy consulting, media in addition to finance services. Internet: www.yole.fr.

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November 3, 2011 — Ziptronix Inc., semiconductor bonding technology developer, shared the results of recent collaborations with major image-sensor manufacturers: Ziptronix ZiBond direct bonding process contributed minimum distortion in backside illuminated (BSI) image sensors.  

The Ziptronix direct bonding technology delivered the lowest distortion of any process for manufacturing BSI image sensors, said Ziptronix CEO Dan Donabedian. "Minimal distortion means pixels can be scaled smaller, and that means increased image sensor resolution, more die per wafer, improved image sensor yields and lower production costs."

BSI image sensor manufacturing typically requires bonding a silicon CMOS wafer to a non-CMOS handle wafer. Because this bonding technology does not involve a large coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch, it does enable very low distortion which is required for scalable color filter array overlay on the exposed photodiodes after thinning of the bonded CMOS wafer.

Wafer distortion introduced during the bonding process can compromise the overlay and limit pixel scaling. ZiBond’s inherent capacity for high bond strength at low temperature effectively minimizes this distortion compared to the competing bond technologies (adhesive and copper thermo-compression), the company reports. This enables submicron pixel scaling; 0.9um pixel BSI image sensors have already been fabricated and work on 0.7um pixel BSI is underway.

BSI image sensors are replacing frontside illuminated image sensors for digital cameras and smartphone cameras, as well as other applications.

Sony Corp. recently licensed the Ziptronix ZiBond technology for BSI image sensor manufacturing.

Ziptronix develops low-temperature direct bond technology for a variety of semiconductor applications, including backside-illuminated (BSI) sensors, RF front-ends, pico projectors, memories and 3D integrated circuits. Visit www.ziptronix.com.

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November 2, 2011 – PRNewswire — MEMS foundry Silex Microsystems licensed its Silex Sil-Via through-silicon-via (TSV) packaging platform to Nanoshift for use in early development of complex MEMS products.

Silex Sil-Via license agreements allow customers to take complex MEMS devices from prototype to volume production faster, said Peter Himes, vice president of marketing and strategic alliances for Silex Microsystems. Through the Silex Sil-Via license, Nanoshift can bring customer designs to market faster, reducing development time and project risk. Transition to full-scale production on Silex’s 6" or 8" wafer fab lines will be "seamless."

Nanoshift chose the Silex Sil-Via platform because it has been "proven in many high-volume [MEMS] applications," said Salah Uddin, co-founder of Nanoshift.

Silex Sil-Via is a proprietary technology for through silicon via (TSV) interconnects: a full-wafer thickness via comprised of a DRIE etched post surrounded by an isolating material. The resulting interconnect is low impedance, mechanically robust, and avoids the thermal mismatch of metal-based via technologies. Silex brought it into production in 2006 and it has been used on over 100 designs. It can be implemented for wafer-level packaging (WLP) as well as MEMS interconnects.

Silex Microsystems is the world’s largest pure-play MEMS foundry. For more information, please visit www.silexmicrosystems.com.

Nanoshift LLC is a privately held design and development company that specializes in emerging technologies. For more information, please visit www.nanoshift.net.

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November 1, 2011 — Scanning probe/atomic force microscopy company Asylum Research introduced the Variable Field Module2 (VFM2) for the MFP-3D Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM). It allows researchers to apply magnetic fields in conductive AFM experiments, magnetic force microscopy, and other applications.

Rare-earth magnets produce the field without heat, thermal drift, or mechanical vibration. The magnetic fields are continuously adjustable, applied parallel to the sample plane approaching one Tesla with one Gauss resolution. An integrated Gaussmeter provides a quantitative measure of the applied magnetic field.

Five frames showing a piece of Perpendicular Media Recording (PMR) hard disk degaussed with an in-plane ~0.5 Tesla magnetic field using the VFM2.

VFM2 attaches to the MFP-3D AFM with adjustable pole tips to accommodate maximum required field, sample placement, and minimum field gradients. Research on piezoelectrics and ferroelectrics can be conducted with an attachable VFM2 High Voltage Kit, for tip biases up to ±220V.

Also read: Global market for piezoelectric-operated actuators and motors and Ferroelectric/ferromagnetic nano-structured film discovery

The VFM2 replaces “complicated” superconducting or water-cooled magnets, said Roger Proksch, president of Asylum Research, “neither of which were particularly friendly to low-noise, high precision AFM measurements.”

Asylum Research makes atomic force and scanning probe microscopy (AFM/SPM) for both materials and bioscience applications. Internet: www.AsylumResearch.com.