By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

Continuing our look at 2014 SEMICON Taiwan.

Unimicron

YH Chen of Unimicron addressed “Panel Level Embedded Substrate Technology.”

Unimicron puts forth a proposal that embedded packaging saves cost because it (a) decreases the substrates used,(b) decreases the area of HDI board needed, (c) better electrical performance due to the proximity of the chips.

Unimicron started embedded passives technology (EPS) in 2009 and moved to HVM in 2012. This is based on burying MLC (multilayer caps).

Buried chip technology called EAS has the following roadmap:

They are also looking at embedded hea “slugs” to increase thermal performance.

Line Embedded technology (LE) uses lasers to creat fine fetures that are then plated up and CMPed to give L/s as low as 8/8um.

In another cost reduction development project, they are looking at combining the non organic interposer and the organic substrate into what they call “flip chip embedded intrposer carrier” as shown below.

Yole Developpement

Azemar of Yole Developpement looked at “Fan-out & Embedded Dies Technologies and market trends.”

Azemar explained again that 2 different approaches are developing for Embedded packages, i.e. FOWLP based on reconfigured molded wafers and embedded die based on PCB laminate materials and infrastructure.

Currently Nanium and StatsChipPAC hold > 80% of the FOWLP market though this is expected to change when TSMC fully enters the market with their InFo-WLP technology.

A generic embedded die packaging flow is shown below.

For embedded die packaging, a new supply chain is required since the die embedding will be done by the PCB manufacturer who is making the substrate.

AT&S appears to hold ~ 80% of the embedded de market. They initiated this space with the TDK DC_DC converter package but Yole reports very little HVM since then.

Micron

At the CFO Executive Summit Strohbecke of Micron  looked at “Micron Technology and the Changing Dynamics of the Memory Semiconductor Industry: Their 2014 vs 2018 assessment of DRAM demand vs application shows an increase in mobile and server/networking at the expense of PC memory.

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