Category Archives: LEDs

BY ROBERT SABDO, Multisorb Technologies

Maintaining the stability of moisture-sensitive electronic components and assemblies is a fundamental concern of manufacturers. Without adequate moisture management, moisture ingress results in oxidation and other product breakdown to severely impact the quality, safety, and longevity of sensitive products.

Sorbents adsorb moisture, oxygen, odors, hydrocarbons, and other volatiles from constrained environments. When incorporated early in the design process, they can prevent moisture and oxidation problems and help protect components and subsystems. Solutions can be as simple as a drop-in sachet or a tightly integrated part of the structure.

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Ingress of moisture, in the presence of oxygen, creates the perfect environment for oxidation, causing salt build-up, dendritic growth, or tin whiskers. The resulting corrosion often leads to high production scrap or field failures. A key decision in the development of any sorbent strategy is to determine how to combat oxidation. Eliminating oxygen directly is often technically difficult and expensive. An alternative is to develop a strategy to manage moisture, the mediating factor to the oxidation reaction. Desiccants are the most common solution.

Some key factors to consider when choosing a desiccant are total capacity for moisture and moisture aggressiveness. The adsorption capacity and the adsorption rate of five common desiccants are shown in Figures 1 and 2. These include montmorillonite clay, silica gel, molecular sieve (synthetic zeolite), calcium sulfate, and calcium oxide.

These desiccants are prescribed depending on the type of technology or design priority. Applications such as LEDs, optical sensors, electronic circuitry, and semiconductors incorporate different desiccant formats due to varying sorbent requirements.

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Calcium oxide is a frequent choice for sensitive LED components because it removes minute amounts of moisture even at low relative humidity. Yet its exothermic properties can create potential problems in temperature-sensitive electronics applications. Further, it has a limited adsorption capacity, initially removing large amounts of water, but tapering off over time, thereby reducing the longevity of moisture protection. Adsorption selectivity is also an issue to be considered: calcium oxide adsorbs many substances in the environment, whereas other sorbents – molecular sieves for example – are chemically formulated to target only water.

By contrast, optical sensors and components are known for their extreme sensitivity to moisture that accumulates over time. Moisture molecules cause undesirable reflections and reduce the effectiveness of light beams emitted from lasers. Maintaining long-term desiccation in vacuum-sealed compartments of light-emitting devices can be crucial to ensuring functionality over time.

In the case of microchips and semiconductors, if moisture is not managed from the outset, heat during manufacturing may cause accumulated moisture to expand and explode the component. Microchips and semiconductors will then have to be reconditioned, which is both expensive and labor-intensive. Popcorning, which occurs when accumulated moisture in hermetically-sealed electronic components cannot escape, can also lead to delamination of the die/package interface and to plastic package cracking.

One solution to the oxidation threat, especially when dealing with hermetically sealed components, is to build the sorbent into the device itself and protect it on a piece-by-piece basis. Specially-engineered sorbents can be incorporated into the material of the manufactured product, serving as structural components while also providing protection from moisture and oxidation.

Sorbent technology offers a diverse array of options that can be customized to fit a variety of design and manufacturing parameters. Key to ensuring product stability and integrity of electronics is the incorporation of a structural desiccant during the initial design phase.

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ROBERT J. SABDO, JR., business development leader, electronics and specialty packaging, may be contacted at Multisorb Technologies, 325 Harlem Road, Buffalo, NY 14224-1893; Tel: 716/824-8900; E-mail:[email protected].

Tegal names new chairman


October 31, 2006

October 31, 2006 – Tegal Corp. says it has appointed company president and CEO Thomas Mika as chairman and new board director effective immediately, and Ralph Martin and Brad Mattson have resigned. Duane Wadsworth will assume the position of “lead independent director” at Tegal.

Mika has led Tegal since March 2005, and held EVP/CFO titles at the company before that. He previously served as a Tegal a board member from 1992-2002.

“Tom’s contributions to Tegal over the years have been exemplary and we look forward to his leadership under this expanded role,” stated Wadsworth.

by Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor

The beautiful tree-covered campus of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven was the backdrop for Flemish research institution IMEC’s annual progress review meeting, where I and other invitees heard about the first major reorganization in its 20-year history. The re-org, partly driven by IMEC’s growth to approximately 1500 permanent staff and visiting researchers, primarily aims to break down the conceptual walls between manufacturing technology development, multi-chip packaging, and circuit design. The three formerly independent divisions will be led by Luc Van den Hove, who has been promoted to COO of the new org starting in January.

By Phil LoPiccolo, Editor-in-Chief

Efficiencies and cost benefits have been the driving force behind the shift from 200mm to 300mm wafers for semiconductor manufacturing. But in a detailed study presented earlier this month at the third annual International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness in Austin, TX, Intel found its ramp of 300mm manufacturing has also led to significant environmental benefits — with lessons that could result in further gains if and when the industry moves to 450mm production.

John Harland, principal environmental engineer with Intel’s Environmental Health and Safety business unit, reported that the company was able to essentially meet the environmental goals set out in SEMATECH’s International 300mm Initiative (I300I), which called for tool emissions and utility consumption from 300mm wafers being the same or less than emissions or utilities levels for 200mm wafers — approximately 56% reduction when normalized per cm2 of silicon.

Intel’s study, comparing the environmental performance of a 300mm (90nm) fab with a 200mm (130nm) fab, showed an across-the-board reduction of normalized hazardous air pollutants: (HAPs) by 68%, perfluorocarbons (PFCs) by 50%, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by 48% [see image below]. At the same time, Intel was able to reduce its use of ultrapure water (UPW) by 48% and CMP solids by 40%. “When you think that over a two year period, or one generation, we had about a 50% reduction in our emissions — a doubling in our environmental performance,” Harland said. “These are clearly impressive results.”

To conduct the emissions study, Intel drew on data it has been gathering for about five years during ramp-ups to new technologies, which have occurred in roughly two-year intervals. By collecting 200mm and 300mm fab data at the same time into the production ramp of fully ramped fabs, and at the same point on each technology’s learning curve, Harland explained, “we were able to get an accurate comparison of the amount of emissions being produced by the two technologies.”

Intel’s environmental improvements were brought about by a wide range of process changes, according to Harland. For example, HAPs — low-molecular-weight organic materials largely used by Intel in backend process modules — were reduced primarily through abatement improvements, although a chemical substitution approach is planned for the longer term, he said. PFC reductions were driven mainly by conversion to NF3 for thin-film chamber cleans, and by replacing SF6 with new etch chemistries. Lower VOC emissions were largely the result of reductions in the use of volatile solvents — e.g., replacing PGMEA with ethyl lactate, collecting volatile liquid waste from tool tracks to cut down on emissions from evaporation, and improving planned maintenance procedures such as opting to use pre-saturated wipes and a centralized system for collecting used wipes. Meanwhile, UPW use was reduced by wet bench tool design improvements, optimized low-flow technologies, better plumbing in wet benches for recycling, and optimization of plating and planar rinses. Finally, using fewer oxide planar layers and optimizing chemical slurries, particularly for copper CMP processes, reduced the use of CMP solids.

Among the key lessons learned from Intel’s environmental efforts — which would be critical in achieving similar environment improvements if the industry moves to 450mm wafer production — are to get early buy-in from all stakeholders, and to take a holistic approach to integrating processes, tools, materials, and facilities, Harland noted. For example, incorporating more recycling of water and chemicals into fabs will require coordination between process engineers, tool suppliers, material suppliers, and fab designers. Another focus should be to include chemical and energy efficiency as part of the industry’s goals and mission. Much larger 450mm fabs will require rethinking how chemicals are delivered, stored, and transported to the fabs, and how wastes are collected. Standardized environmental and utility metrics will also be essential, he noted, adding that the ability to obtain quality data from tool suppliers was key to helping Intel design more environmentally focused factories. — P.L.

Oct. 24, 2006 — Hymite A/S, a manufacturer of silicon-based packaging products for electronic devices, announced the expansion of its North American sales operations with the addition of a worldwide sales director and new offices in Rockwall, Texas. The expansion is designed to answer the growing market need for wafer-scale packages for consumer and industrial, medical and automotive components, including LEDs.

Hymite designs and supplies innovative wafer-scale silicon packages for MEMS and ICs that are significantly smaller and more cost-effective than traditional packaging, while conforming to standard QFN/SON specifications for high-volume applications. The company’s silicon packaging offers several advantages, including IC-style batch manufacture, package miniaturization, reduced labor costs and hermetic sealing.

The company hired Eric Leonard as director of worldwide sales. Leonard will help develop the company’s strategic sales direction and oversee all sales activity. He joined Hymite from Quantum Leap Packaging, where he oversaw strategic sourcing and built a global supply chain. Prior to that Mr. Leonard served as vice president at Amkor Technology, where he was responsible for managing an international team supporting assembly and test revenue of over $100 million. Hymite’s corporate offices are located in Copenhagen, Denmark and its main design facility is in Berlin, Germany.

ODM Chip Purchases 2006


October 18, 2006

iSuppli reports that the top five increased semiconductor purchasing by 26.1% last year, and will generate a 24.5% increase this year, followed by a 28.6% rise in 2007. Quanta Computer Inc. led the 2006 rankings with $5.2B in chips purchased, up 17.9% from 2005. At $4.7B, Asustek stepped up chip purchases by 20.1%. The third-ranked Wistron will achieve 89% growth, according to the analyst firm, going from $1.98 to $2.25B.

(October 19, 2006) AUSTIN, TX &#151 Flip chip and wafer-level packaging (WLP) usage is expanding into a broader range of devices, according to TechSearch International’s report, “Flip Chip and WLP: 2006 Market Update and Technology Developments.” The study finds flip chip and WLP growing by 24% from 2005 to 2010, and predicts that flip chip substrate limitations will be resolved by 2007.

Oct. 18, 2006 — WiSpry Inc., a fabless semiconductor company developing dynamically tunable radio frequency integrated circuits for wireless devices, announced it has raised a $13.5 million Series B financing.

L Capital Partners, a new WiSpry investor, led the round. Participating in the round was other new investor Hotung Capital Management, as well as existing investors American River Ventures, Blueprint Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Tech Coast Angels and Western Technology Investment.

“The company’s patented CMOS-compatible manufacturing process makes us the first fabless semiconductor company to enable high-volume, low-cost commercial production of fully integrated RF-MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) devices,” said WiSpry co-founder and CEO Jeff Hilbert in a prepared statement. “As a result, we will deliver next-generation performance at prices competitive with traditional integrated circuits.

He said the financing would fund continued growth as the company ramps the development, production and sales of its integrated RF-MEMS-enabled CMOS products for the mobile handset market. He said the company’s proprietary products would eliminate the need for multiple RF paths required in multi-standard, multi-band applications, including ‘global’ mobile phones, mobile wireless subsystems and wireless base stations.

Intematix sells to LEDTECH


October 11, 2006

Oct. 11, 2006 — Solid state lighting phosphor provider Intematix Corp. of Fremont, Calif., announced that it has added LEDTECH Electronics Corp. of Taiwan to its list of strategic customer wins.

The company said LEDTECH has selected a broad offering of Intematix’ patent-backed phosphors to enable an product line expansion that includes high color rendering LED solutions for consumer-oriented applications. LEDTECH is a leading supplier of LEDs in both visible and infrared implementations for industrial and consumer applications.

Intematix offers patent-backed phosphor options to designers and manufacturers for high brightness LEDs and solid state lighting solutions. Included in the agreement is Intematix’ Green Lightning G5X2XTM series and OG450TM Warm White Series, along with their White Lightning NY450TM / NY460TM product line in both cool and warm white spectral variants.

Oct. 6, 2006 — QD Vision Inc. of Watertown, Mass., announced it has developed a green quantum-dot light-emitting device.

Lumera said the development is a milestone toward the company’s goal of enabling the next generation of premium flat-panel displays intended to feature high product reliability, low power consumption and scalable manufacturing.

It also said green quantum-dot devices fabricated in its laboratory have consistently exceeded the stringent color standards required by the display industry.

October 4, 2006 – Achor Semiconductor Inc., a developer of technology providing control of IC layout-to-silicon pattern transfer, has closed a second round of financing totaling $7.2 million, led by H&Q Asia Pacific. Funds will be used to “significantly grow R&D, applications engineering, sales and the marketing team,” the company said in a statement.

“From both a technology and business perspective, this is the right time for us to expand the company,” stated Chenmin Hu, president of Anchor Semiconductor. “DFM has moved from a technological concept to a product reality as chip designers struggle with lithographic problems while designing for 65nm and 45nm manufacturing processes. Clearly, chip design flows that large chip and integrated device manufacturers use will mandate the inclusion of DFM tools.”

Anchor, founded in 2000, counts Xilinx and TSMC, along with UMC and SMIC, among its customers of large IDMs, foundries, IC design firms and equipment vendors. The company’s NanoScope product line offers OPC/RET inspection, design verification, and yield analysis down to sub-90nm manufacturing processes.