By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

The Georgia Tech High Density Interposer Technology conference (GIT) held a few weeks ago in Atlanta. Traditionally it has been a great place to compare and contrast high-density interposers in silicon vs glass vs laminate. In the next few weeks, we will take a look at some of the key presentations.

Kyocera – Adv Laminate Packaging Design Rules

Some of you youngsters might not recall that Kyocera the ceramics company expand into the high density laminates business when they purchased IBM Yasu production in 2005. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, IBM had been working on increasing the density of laminate packages by adding thin film layers with photo vias. They called these SLC (surface laminar circuits) Such high density BGAs were necessary for flip chip packaging to move to HVM. This all took off ~ 1992 when IBMs Yutaka Tsukada announced the technology for flip chip underfill and SLC circuits. Ground rules for the first gen SLC are shown below:

 

Kyocera, seeing that higher densities and lower costs would not be coming from the ceramics business, made a bold move a decade ago when they bought the business from IBM. It is interesting to look at how the technology has advanced in a decade. Their latest ground rules are shown below.

ESI – High Accuracy Lasers for Adv Packaging

Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) shared the latest results with their CornerStone ICP Series UV laser drilling system designed for use in Integrated Circuit Packaging applications.

They report positional accuracy of +/- 4 µm and 10 µm via capability with AR of 1:1.

 

System capabilities are summarized below:

In addition, the new system has a 25% smaller footprint than typical laser drills in HVM production today.

Suss Microtec – Eximer Laser Ablation for Adv Packaging

Suss shared their information about damascene processing of RDL using their eximer laser tool. The eximer laser is used with mask based projection with a field area of 35 x 35mm sq.

 

Suss has developed a process flow for the stacking of high density RDL layers using non photo dielectrics.

For all the latest on 3DIC and other advanced packaging, stay linked to IFTLE…

By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

G450 – 450mm wafer status report

For most of us, whether we work in the FEOL or in packaging, what we want to know about the attempted move to 450mm wafers is (1) if it will really happen and if so (2) when will it happen. Unfortunately, those answers are not yet clear. The recent G450C update at SEMICON Europa shared some new information, but we really cannot expect such a highly politicked program to ever come out and say “This just isn’t going to work.”

G450C is a collaborative consortium being run at the Albany nano tech center. Members are Intel, TSMC, GlobalFoundries Samsung and IBM. IBM, recall has sold off all production capability to GF, so this program, to them, is really a window on what can be done, not something they will commercialize.

The consortium goal is to have a “full flow 14/10nm process capability on line by 2016.” Of interest was their tool installation status report as shown below.

In terms f process readiness, they reported the following:

• Process Capability demonstrated on 98% 14nm process steps
• Productivity: 80% of process tools can achieve 300mm equivalent or better (WPH)
• Performance: Process tools at or near 300mm process targets
• Suppliers can deliver HVM tools in 18-24 months after signals
• Potential die cost savings of >30% achievable

Panasonic – Plasma Dicing

Panasonic reports that plasma based dicing is both damage free and results in more die per wafer due to the narrower dicing streets. Panasonic reports etch rates of 20m/min with their APX300 HVM tool.

 

In addition, the fracture strength of the silicon is greatly increased.

Front side and backside process flows are shown below.

Fraunhoffer EMFT – Ultra-thin devices in flexible packages

Christof Landesberger of Fraunhoffer EMFT discussed their program to develop a processing scheme for embedding and interconnection of ultra-thin IC devices in flexible chip foil packages.

Target applications include:

• Smart phones – Reduce package thickness
• Healthcare and Wearables
• Large area electronics; e. g. bendable displays and photovoltaic modules
• Sensors on curved surfaces; to be adapted or integrated to machines, buildings, robots, housings
• IoT applications

The key question to be answered is: “Will there be increased mechanical robustness of ultra-thin silicon die after embedding them in films?”

They report a strong increase in breaking force for ultra thin silicon after embedding as shown in the following weibull plot.

 

Their process flow is sown below.

In their micro controller demonstrator, 25um thick die are inserted in the cavities on the flexible substrate. The chips are covered by 10um of thin film dielectric and patterned and connected. The final packages showed no cracking or delamination after bending.

Their initial conclusions are hat rigid packages will be used for 50-150um thick die and such flexible packages will be used for ultra thin, 10-30um die.

Osram – review of chip interconnection in LED packages

Standard LED packages remain lead frame based. They are:

– easy to assemble by standard SMT reflow

– show the lowest manufacturing cost

– integral solder pad with excellent heat sinking

– single WB interconnect with proven reliability

A multitude of packaging configurations are available and are being used.

Die attach methods include conductive epoxies, non conductive silicones, sinterable materials and eutectic metal solders which all provide different thermal performance and cost and ae better compatible to different packages.

 

Amongst other things, they conclude:

– When comparing acrylate based silver filled die attach to their epoxy counterparts Osram finds that the acrylates show less stable interconnection after solder heat treatment.

– Corrosive gasses like moisture, NO2 and SO2 diffuse through clear silicone encapsulant. Attack on copper is even worse. Hybrid silicones should be used as well as Ni diffusion barriers for copper gold plated surfaces.

For all the latest on 3DIC and other advanced packaging, stay linked to IFTLE…

By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

Consolidation in our maturing industry is the ONE most important this that is happening to microelectronics in the 21^st century because this is/will set the playing field for everything that follows. Many of you will be working for massive new companies soon whether you know it or not. This is something you really should be paying close attention to.

LAM Acquires KLA_Tencor

Consolidation continues with the recent announcement that Lam will acquire KLA-Tencor in a cash and stock transaction. The combined company will combine Lam’s capabilities in deposition, etch, and clean with KLA-Tencor’s capabilities in inspection and metrology. The combined company will have ~ $8.7B annual revenue making it roughly the same size as AMAT.

There will likely be opposition from some in the semi industry but probably less so than for the AMAT/TEL proposed merger since there is really little overlap in their focus markets.

Western Digital (WD) to Acquire SanDisk

The hard disk drive segment of our industry reached maturity ~ 2011. The hard disk drive business started in the 1960’s. Since then the > 200 companies who have been in the business competed on data density and latency and smaller form factors. Most of that industry has long since vanished through bankruptcy, mergers and acquisitions. As expected for a mature industry segment there are now 3 surviving manufacturers – Seagate, Toshiba and WD. Seagate acquired Samsung’s HDD business in 2011; Western Digital (WD) merged with Hitachi’s HDD business in 2011 and Toshiba acquired Fujitsu’s HDD business in 2009. This divided up the HDD market into WD 48%, Seagate 40% and Toshiba 12%.

Growth in mature industry segments requires acquisitions in aligned fields. Thus it could have been expected that WD would make a move into other types of data storage. WD’s acquisition of SanDisk gives the company an instant foothold in the global, non-volatile NAND flash memory market.

With the PC HDD business in decline due to both a weakening PC market and solid state drives (SSDs) making major inroads into that market, WD needed access to NAND storage technology both for laptops/desktops and to maintain competitiveness with NAND players in the enterprise space. This acquisition will allow WD to expand its participation in higher-growth memory storage segments.

It is reported that WD will have to raise $18.4 billion to finance the $19B SanDisk acquisition. In September WD announced that Chinese state-backed Unisplendour Corporation ( a subsidiary of Tsinghua Holdings ) would be investing $3.8B for 15% of WD “to help facilitate growth and future strategic initiatives.”

Sony Acquires Toshiba’s CMOS Image Sensor Business

Toshiba has announced that it will sell its image sensor business to Sony for ~ $166MM and pull out of the sensor business. For Sony, the acquisition of Toshiba’s image sensor business would further solidify its already dominant position in the industry where it already controls 40% of the market.

For those of us that have been following 3D with TSV since its inception, we recall that Toshiba was responsible for one of the early milestones, namely it was Oct 2007 that Toshiba announced the commercialization of their “chip scale camera module” which used “through chip vias.” Although it was only a one layer device, it marked the first mainstream commercial use of TSV in the silicon chip industry. By the way that was reported in one of my very first blogs in PFTLE, the predecessor to IFTLE which ran for several years in the now defunct Semiconductor International magazine. At that time PFTLE predicted that the CMOS imaging chips would eventually be broken up into functions and stacked. Sony brought that concept to commercialization a few years ago. [ see IFTLE 172, “IFTLE 172 Sony TSV Stacked CMOS Image Sensors Finally Arrive in 2013” ]

TSMC InFO

What’s the inside info on InFO. Try as you might, despite the significant press it has received, you cannot point to a publication that clearly outlines the process flow for TSMC’s InFO package. I have been asked whether it is chips first or chips last and all I could answer was: “Good question.”

Well, sources in Asia have leaked the following process flow to me. Although I cannot guarantee this is the actual TSMC InFO process flow (until Doug Yu confirms it) I’ll none the less show it to you since it is a quite interesting flow. The answer to the question for this process flow is chips first or interconnect last. Die are placed face up, pillars are plated on die and then molded. Routng to the package BGA balls is through mold vias (TMV). The wafer is then polished down to reveal tops of Cu pillars and standard” RDL is processed up from there. Ability for finer features appears to come from more planar starting surfaces and better controls of photo processes. IFTLE would guess that warpage is the major problem for this process flow.

3D ASIP Conference 12 Years and Going Strong

As it has for the last decade, 3D ASIP will once again close out the packaging conference season with its mid December 3DIC focused meeting outside of SF.

The 12^th annual 3D Architectures for Semiconductor Integration and Packaging, or 3D ASIP as it has become known, will be held December 15-17, 2015, at the Sofitel San Francisco Bay Hotel in Redwood City, Ca. It is the longest running conference on 3DIC focused on commercialization and infrastructure.

The conference general chair and program coordinator is Dr. Philip Garrou, Microelectronics Consultants of NC. The technical co-chairs this year will be Professor Mitsumasa Koyanagi, Tohoku University, and Dr. Rama Alapati, director of packaging product management, GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

Matt Lueck of RTI International and Herb Reiter of EDA2ASIC Consultants have developed two half-day tutorials focused on temporary bonding/debonding and interposer design respectively. Presenters from CEA-Leti, HD Micro, Dow, TOK, Brewer Science, SUSS MicroTec and TOK will discuss the current state of the art in bonding and debonding technologies. The interposer design program includes presentations from Mentor Graphics, Cadence Design Systems, Ansys, E-System Design, Zuke, and eSilicon.

“This year, 3D ASIP will honor two trailblazers in 3DIC, Peter Ramm, Fraunhofer EMFT and Professor Mitsumasa Koyanagi, Tohoku University. They will be honored for their early pioneering work in the 1990s that set the stage for what we today know as 3DIC. Following the award ceremony, each recipient will deliver a short presentation on his group’s early work in 3DIC.

 

Plenary presentations will be delivered by Brandon Prior, Prismark, discussing the status of 2.5/3D and other high density technologies; Rozalia Beica, Yole Développement, comparing and contrasting the new 3D memory architectures; and DC Hu, Unimicron, reviewing the transformation of substrate technology.

 

The nine invited sessions cover topics including: Memory Stacks become Reality, Products and Production in the 2.5/3D Infrastructure, Equipment and Metrology, High Density Packaging without TSV, and Heterogeneous Integration.

Key presentations will include Hynix, Micron, Tezzaron and Toshiba discussing their new 3D stacked memory products; Xilinx/SPIL, Amkor and TSMC discussing their non TSV high density solutions; AMD discussing the commercialization of Fiji graphics modules with HBM memory stacks. Dan Green of DARPA discussing their DAHI heterogeneous integration 3D platform and Sony discussing their new stacked image sensor technology.

For more information on the conference agenda, visit the conference website at www.3dasip.org.

For all the latest on 3DIC and other advanced packaging, stay linked to IFTLE…

 

IMPACT Taiwan

The IMPACT conference claims to be the largest gathering of packaging and PCB professionals in Taiwan. It is organized by IEEE CPMT, ITRI, IMAPS Taiwan and the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association. The Technical Chair for IMPACT 2015 is CT Liu, of ITRI.

Altera

Charlie Lu of Altera discussed his reasoning for the new term “ViB” to describe Via-interconnect Ball-Grid-Array.

Traditionally we all learned that there are three types of interconnect: WB, FC and TAB. Lu defines ViB as a ball-grid-array package whose chip-to-package electrical interconnect is achieved by direct interconnection through the vias. Some wafer level packages and fan-out packages, he contends, belong to this category.

Traditionally, chip-to-package interconnect is done by wire bonding (WB), flip-chip bonding (FC), and to some extent, tape-automatic bonding (TAB). There are two steps for via-interconnect process: (1) via formation and (2) via filling or via bottom and sidewall metallization. Via formation could be done by laser ablation or photolithography process, or by other techniques. Via filling and metallization is usually done by mixed techniques of Ti/Cu sputtering and Cu or Ni/Cu plating. Thus, the process of via-interconnect technology is unique from that of WB, FCB, and TAB.

Lu compares the interconnect technologies in the table below.

The industry has begun using the term WLP for so called fan in packages fabricated on wafer, “FO-WLP” for fan out packages formed from reconstituted wafers, and “FO-PLP for fan out packages formed by panel level processing. Lu correctly points out that all packages except fan in WLP are FO packages. He prefers the term ViB as a category to cover both FO-WLP and FO-PLP. If it is necessary to spell out the process applied for a given ViB, an additional suffix could be added, like ViB-D, D stands for “dry”, meaning that the ViB is made by wafer Fab-like process. Likewise ViB-W means the ViB is processed by “wet” process, i.e. PCB-like process. It is no longer necessary to emphasize a package is fan-out or fan-in, because WLP already implies itself a fan-in package, apart from WLP, all others are fan-out packages.

Those of you who follow IFTLE closely know I’m a stickler for nomenclature and not a fan of terms like 2.1D which have no real meaning or “interposer” since all packages are interposers. In this case Lu is attempting to clarify the categories and I can see some logic in his presentation. Whether we all pick up on ViB or not in the end will depend on all of you.

iNEMI

iNEMI updated their program on “recent trends in package warpage”. Below we see a comparison of the warpage for various packages with various pretreatments.

POP:

• Dynamic warpage of POP package varies according the construction.
• There is insignificant dynamic warpage difference between “As I” vs Bake and MET.
• Majority of the POP package received kept the high temperature warpage below 100um.

POP Memory:

• There is insignificant dynamic warpage difference between “As Is” vs “Bake” and “MET”.
• Majority of the POP package received kept the dynamic warpage below 100um.

FCBGA:

• There is no observable dynamic warpage difference between As Is vs Bake.
• Different Lid attachments can yield different dynamic warpage characteristic.
• Ceramic substrate with Lid demonstrate similar dynamic warpage behavior as like organic substrate but with lower magnitude for the package size considered.

PBGA:

• The effect of “Bake” and “MET” on dynamic warpage is more apparent in PBGA package.
• The “Bake” generally shows lower high temperature while “As Is” and “MET” shows the tendency to elevate the warpage by 20-50um. Take note that this depends on the mold material used.

SPIL

Max Lu, deputy Director of SIliconware, discussed WLP innovations such as molded WLCSP, Fan-Out WLP and NTI (No TSV interconnection).

Molded WLCSP

Potential for greater board level reliability.

Passes: component level – 1000hr TCT ; 96hr HAST and 1000hr HTS PASS

Board level – 1000x TCT cycle and 30X Drop test.

Fan Out PoP

Thinner FOWLP results in thinner PoP packages. Passes: component level – 1000hr TCT ; 96hr HAST and 1000hr HTS PASS and Board level – 500x TCT cycle and 30X Drop test.

No TSV Interconnect (NTI) Platform

SIliconware was one of the first to describe a chips last interconnect technology which they call SLIT (see IFTLE 215, “STATS Acquisition; Will SLIT replace TSV?”).

SPIL proposes the merits of NTI Platform are:

• Shortening interconnection distance than traditional TSV interposer.
• Reducing interposer process cost without TSV related process cost.
• Processing by all existing MEoL/BEoL equipment.

The following shows the unit operations done by SPIL and those done in foundry.

For all the latest in 3DIC and other advanced packaging stay linked to IFTLE…

DARPA

In his presentation “Path to 3D Heterogeneous Integration” Dan Green, DARPA program manager described their motivation for heterogeneous integration.

Modern RF systems are under pressure to make use of the spectrum in sophisticated ways, while working within limited power budgets on platforms with reduced size and weight. The compound semiconductor (CS) electronics industry is well-positioned to address these challenges, due to the superior properties and diversity of CS materials. For example, high electron mobility and peak velocity of InP-based material systems have resulted in transistors with f_max above 1THz . Wide energy bandgap GaN has enabled large voltage swings as well as high breakdown voltage RF power devices. The excellent thermal conductivity of SiC makes tens of kW power switches possible. On-chip high-Q micro-electromechanical resonators and switches in materials such as AlN, have been demonstrated that potentially can be used for clock references and frequency selective filters.

The DARPA view is that the future of CS electronics depends not on displacing Si, but rather on heterogeneous integration of compound semiconductors with silicon technology in a way that will allow the advantages of the two technology types to be optimally combined.

The DAHI Foundry Technology thrust was initiated in 2013 to advance the diversity of heterogeneous device and materials available in a silicon-based platform and make this technology available to the greater DoD and commercial microsystems design community through the establishment of an accessible, manufacturable foundry offering for device-level heterogeneous integration. Recently, a DAHI multi-project wafer run was demonstrated utilizing 0.25um InP HBTs, 0.2um GaN HEMTs heterogeneously integrated with 65nm Si CMOS. A chiplet assembly approach was chosen as the primary path at the DAHI Principal Foundry because of reported advantages in flexibility and processing of dissimilar materials.

Xilinx

Xilinx updated the audience on their 2.5D FPGA program. Xilinx has participated since 2006 in 3D-IC technology development. Today there are more than (7) 3D-IC products from 2 generations of FPGA family nodes in shipping to customers. The figure below compares the different technologies available for high density interconnect.

Tohoku Univ

Rittinon and co-workers reported on the stability of electroplated copper thin film interconnect.

The mechanical properties of electroplated copper thin films, such as Young’s modulus and tensile strength vary drastically compared to those of conventional bulk copper. The reason for the variation and fluctuation of these mechanical properties is that the electroplated copper thin films mainly consist of fine columnar grains with porous grain boundaries as shown in the figure below. This micro texture changes the mechanical properties of the electroplated copper thin films significantly from those of bulk copper.

The existence of porous grain boundaries is the main reason for the high resistivity and local high Joule heating in the electroplated copper interconnections. Therefore, the crystallinity of the electroplated copper thin-film interconnection has significant effect on the long-term reliability of the interconnections. They find that high Joule heating appears at grain boundaries with low crystallinity.

It is well-known that the crystallinity of electroplated copper interconnections is improved by high temp annealing. Since recrystallization and/or grain coarsening occurs during annealing, however, high tensile stress remains in the annealed interconnection because the shrinkage of the film is strictly prohibited by the surrounding silicon in a TSV structure. Such high tensile stress is the main reason for stress-induced migration in the interconnection resulting in the formation of a lot of voids in it.

Since the lattice mismatch between tantalum (the Cu migration barrier layer) and copper is about 18%, these researchers feel it is necessary to introduce an intermediate layer as the seed layer material between them. They report that a thin layer of ruthenium is an effective material for minimizing the lattice mismatch. It decrease the lattice mismatch from 18% to 6% thus lowering the overall stress formation.

IMEC/Samsung

It has been known for several decades that low temp oxide wafer bonding can be enhanced by plasma treatment of the oxide surfaces by process flows such as the one shown below.

Researchers at IMEC and Samsung have now studied the potential for low temp bonding by dielectric films other than SiO₂. The figure below shows the results of the surface roughness and bond strength measurements for SiO_x, SiO_xN_y and SiC_xN_y surfaces that were treated with O₂, Ar or N₂ plasmas. Among those three dielectric films, the SiC_xN_y film had the best bonding strength in the same low temperature annealing condition for 2h at 250°C.

Nikon

Sugaya and co-workers reported on a new “precision” wafer bonding technology for 3DIC. The technology includes a new precision alignment methodology and a unique thermo-compression bonding procedure. Experimental results show that the alignment capability is 100nm or better, and permanent bonding accuracy of 260 nm (|mean| + 3σ) in 300 mm Cu wafer bonding.

Chuo Univ.

3D memory with TSV has been proposed as a candidate for the next generation integrated solid-state drive (SSD) with storage class memory (SCM). Such a 3D-TSV SSD is expected to have advantages of fast speed, low power consumption, and high endurance. The table below summarizes the comparison of simulated write performance, energy and required minimum I/O data rates by using the SSDs with and without 3D-TSV. The write energy reduces 68% by applying 3D-TSV in the SCM/MLC NAND hybrid SSD.

Toray

Toray has examined increasing the productivity of IC stacking by thermos compression by a “collective” process as shown below.

When NCF is used with TCB, enhancement of productivity is an important issue, because it takes about 10 sec to cure the NCF and at the same time melt a solder and connect to an electrode on the substrate. They propose one technique to solve the problem, is by using “collective bonding”. In a pre bonding process, chips are placed quickly at low temperature. Pre bonding of the four layer on a Si substrate was performed in the condition that the stage temperature is 80°C and the head temperature is 150°C for 0.8 s. Post bonding was performed by the equipment which has an improved stage for 3D stacking. As the post bonding condition, the peak temperature of second step of bonding head was set to 280oC so that the temperature in the NCF of the lowest layer was 240°C which was enough to melt a solder. The stage temperature was set to 80°C.

Another technique to speed up the overall process is gang bonding where several chips are placed onto the substrate and bonded at one time.

For all the latest on 3DIC and other advanced packaging stay linked to IFTLE…

 

By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

The official IEEE 3DIC meeting started in 2009. It rotates from the USA to Europe to Asia on an annual basis. I say official because we all know that “3DIC” has been a buzzword, so every electronics conference in the world has sought 3DIC content, including competing IEEE conferences.

This year’s conference was in Sendai Japan and headed up by Mitsu Koyanagi from Tohoku University. Many of you may not know that Koyanagi-san is viewed as one of the fathers of 3DIC based on his early work in the late 1980s, such as his famous paper “Roadblocks to Achieving Three Dimensional LSI”. He has been working on the three key technologies for 3DIC (thinning, TSV, and bonding) since that time. He will be receiving a “Pioneering Award” for his 3DIC activities this fall at the 3D ASIP Conference which I will be chairing. [Link]

GINTI

IFTLE has discussed GINTI previously (see IFTLE 166, “IEEE 3DIC Conf part 1; 3DIC panel discussion; Ginti; Novati”).

One of the plenary presentations at this year’s IEEE 3DIC conference was “Advanced 2.5D/3D Hetero-Integration Technologies at GINTI, Tohoku University” by KW Lee, Koyanagi-san, and co-workers, detailing the activities at the University and the prototyping spin-out.

The Global Integration Initiative (GINTI) is 8/12-inch R&D foundry fab for the R&D of 2.5D/3D integration technologies and applications. GINTI provides a process development infrastructure in a manufacturing-like fab environment and “low cost”, prototyping of proof of concepts using commercial/customized 2D chip/wafer, and a base-line process. The figure below shows their 8/12-inch 2.5D/3D integration process equipment

State-of-the technologies include design, layout and mask making to wafer thinning, forming of TSV on chip/wafer (front side/backside TSV), redistribution routing, both side micro-bump formation, chip/wafer stacking, failure analysis, and reliability testing.

GINTI can provide 3D prototype LSI stacking using commercial 2D chips by die-level 3D hetero-integration, backside TSV formation and various stacking (C2C C2W, W2W, and self-assembly) technologies.

GINTI mainly focuses on via-last backside TSV approach, because they feel it is a better solution for heterogeneously integrating different function, size, and material devices, with better flexibility for commercial chip/wafers.

Their process flow for via-last backside TSV fabrication is shown below. The incoming LSI device wafer with metal bumps is temporarily bonded onto a support wafer. Then the Si substrate is thinned to target thickness from the backside by grinding and CMP. After via patterning on the ground surface, the deep Si trench is formed from the backside by RIE processing until the first level metallization layer (M1) is exposed. Oxide liner is deposited via holes and the bottom oxide liner in via hole is selectively etched by dry etching to re-expose the M1 layer. Next, the deep trench is filled with Cu by electroplating after dep of barrier and seed metal layers. Re-distribution layer (RDL) is then formed on the backside and metal bumps are formed on the RDL by electroplating. Finally, the support wafer is de-bonded from the thinned LSI wafer.

To create new 3D hetero-integrated systems, they have developed die-level 3D integration technology as shown below. Commercially available 2D chips with different functions and sizes, such as those of sensor, logic, and memories which were fabricated by different technologies, are processed to form TSVs and metal micro-bumps and integrated to form a 3D stacked chip in die level.

The image below shows a 3D stacked image sensor chip comprising three layers of CIS, CDS, and ADC chips for high-speed image sensor systems.

For all he latest on 3DIC and other advanced IC packaging solutions stay linked to IFTLE…

By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

This week lets finish our look at the substrate and panel level processing activities at Semicon Taiwan 2015’s Embedded and Wafer Level Package Technology Forum.

UniMicron

DC Hu reviewed Innovative Substrate Technologies including glass as a candidate material for high density substrates and interposers.

When it comes to the impact of panel level processing on the cost of high density substrates most would agree that while large glass and PCB panels are available at a reasonable cost, it is not yet clear that current equipment can produce the required densities and thus meet the low cost expectations. Never the less, it is certainly worth the effort to develop the data and sort this issue out.

For glass, one of the main questions has been can you make electrically and mechanically functional vias and fill them with conductive metals. Hu compares the current via forming capability of Va Mechanic, LPKF and Corning as is shown below. It appears that the most advanced systems are currently developing < 100um glass thickness, ~25um holes at a throughput of > 2000 holes/sec.

Laser & Electronics AG (LPKF) is a German equipment manufacturer that focuses mainly on PCB prototyping and micromachining solutions for SMT stencils. Via Mechanics, previously known as Hitachi via mechanics Ltd has been engaged in manufacturing, printed wiring board (PWB) manufacturing systems.

Unimoicron is also developing a laminate using glass as core as shown below. Glass has a 3X better flatness (R < 0.5mm) than an organic core given he same core CTE (i.e. 3 ppm/°C). Such technology is currently being demonstrated at 508 x 508mm; 100-200um glass thickness; with 8/8um L/S on ABF dielectric.

They have demonstrated sub 2/2 L/S on test vehicles.

Fraunhoffer IZM

Tanja Braun and co-workers at IZM/TUB detailed their studies on fan out panel level processing. They listed the following as the most obvious challenges:

The equipment they have put in place for ~600 x 450 panel level processing line is shown below.

J Devices Panel Level Processing (PLP)

Reasons for wanting to develop pane level processing are obvious. A 500 x 400mm panel has 3X the area of a 300mm wafer.

The standard PLP process flow is shown below:

J Devices is equipping a PCB facility to manufacture the PLP technology.

J Devices makes the point that required RDL technology depends on the application. For example Application processors require wafer photolithography while modules for RF/PMIC only require PCB photolithography.

For all the latest on 3DIC and other advanced packaging stay linked to IFTLE…

 

By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

Consolidation

One may say that IFTLE has been obsessed with consolidation for the last few years. The reasons for this become obvious when one looks at the increase in recent activity. There are typically ~25 or so acquisitions a year. In 2015, there will 2X that number and the deals, in general are ~10X larger than in the past.

IC Insights has recently pulled together the major M&A activity over the last year.

In addition, several large M&A agreements announced last year have closed in 2015 including:

• RF Micro Devices and TriQuint Semiconductor officially completed their Qorvo merger
• Qualcomm completed its acquisition of CSR in August 2015
• Cypress completed its acquisition and merger with Spansion in March 015
• Infineon completed its acquisition of International Rectifier in January 2015
• IBM completed the sale of its Microelectronics business to GlobalFoundries in July 2015

IC Insights notes that the unprecedented M&A activity is indicative of IC suppliers experiencing slower sales in their existing market segments and the need to broaden their businesses to stay in favor with investors. IFTLE favors the explanation that we have published previously, i.e. many of the segments of our industry are entering late stage 3 and stage 4 where consolidation is the norm. (See IFTLE 241, “Simply Obeying the Laws of Economics”.)

ASE Buys 25 percent of SPIL Stock

Following up on our story about ASE attempting to purchase 25 percent of SPIL (see IFTLE 252, “ASE makes bid for SPIL shares…”), ASE announced on September 22 it has purchased 25 percent shares of SPIL shares, achieving its acquisition goal.

SPIL reiterated that a SPIL-ASE tie-up would not create much synergy, since 85 percent of its customers overlap with ASE’s. “… the acquisition will cause order losses as customers will allocate some orders to a third supplier rather than put all their eggs in one basket,” SPIL stated.

ASE noted that now being a major shareholder of SPIL, the company will be exploring avenues of cooperation with SPIL but otherwise, “ ASE will not intervene in SPIL’s operations and therefore, cannot affect the rights and interests of SPILs current employees.” [Link]

Embedded and Wafer Level Package Technology Forum at Semicon Taiwan

Continuing our look at Semicon Taiwan 2015, let’s begin our look at the Embedded and Wafer Level Package Technology Forum led by Mr. Albert Lan (left), Senior Director, SPIL. The theme of the forum was System Integration & Package Solutions for Portable/Wearable/IoT Devices. Mediatek discussed “Packaging Breakthroughs in Wearable Devices”. Unimicron gave a great review of “Innovative Substrate Technology …”;  J Devices discussed their panel level processing efforts and Fraunhoffer IZM discussed results of their fan out panel level processing.

 

Mediatek

Overall Mediatek sees IoT wearables as requiring:

• miniaturization which can be achieved with embedding;
• being substrate less for low cost which is achieved by fan out packaging; and
• being manufactured on a panel process to minimize cost.

Mediatek discussed Aster (MT2502A) a monolithic low-power CMOS chip integrating power management unit, analog baseband and radio circuitry. Based on an ARM RISC processor, it provides a platform for class 12 MODEM and leading-edge multimedia applications.

It also features a Bluetooth transceiver and an FM receiver supporting both audio broadcast de-modulation and RDS/RBDS data decoding. The MT2502A device is offered in a 5.4mm×6.2mm, 143-ball, 0.4mm pitch, TFBGA package. MT2502A provides always-on mode to optimize the low power performance for wearable device. [Link]

Another interesting development is their antenna on package (AoP) technology which they claim offers smaller form factor, better performance and faster time to market, although one must be careful about a properly designed keep-out-zone and proper design to minimize EM interference.

We’ll finish up with Semicon Taiwan 2015 next week.

For all the latest in 3DIC and other advanced packaging stay linked to IFTLE.

By Dr. Phil Garrou, Contributing Editor

System Integration by 3D SiP

The forum chairman was CP Hung, who is currently the VP of Corporate R&D for ASE Group, responsible for next generation products development. The System Integration by 3D SiP forum invited global experts to discuss the development of 3DIC and 2.5DIC packaging and alternative solutions. Presentations were made by Cisco, AMD, SK Hynix, ASE, Altera, Amkor, Teledyne and Cadence.

 

AMD

Bryan Black detailed the commercialization of the AMD “Fiji” GPU which has been in development for 8.5 years. It “required the collaboration of 20+ companies and government research organizations”. The four that were key included Amkor, ASE, SK Hynix and UMC.

Some of the obstacles that they ran up against are listed below:

SK Hynix is in production with HBM memory in support of “Fiji”. HBM benefits include:

• 4096-bit memory interface with four stacks creating 512GB/s of bandwidth
• 60% higher memory bandwidth6 for 60% less power7 than GDDR5
• 4X bandwidth per watt improvement from Radeon (TM) R9 290X

SK Hynix

Hongshin Jun of SK Hynix detailed their high bandwidth memory development. Each application has different memory requirements, but most common are high bandwidth (HBM) and low power consumption.

Mass production of their HBMPower consumption and bandwidth are compared for DDR and HBM below:

HBM 2 will show the following properties:

The stacked memory features 25um bumps on 55um pitch.

Amkor

Min Yoo of Amkor presented their SLIM and SWIFT package architectures. Basically, these are interconnected first technologies with no TSV. SLIM uses back-end foundry technology for <2um L/S, whereas SWIFT uses 2-10um OSAT RDL technology.

GaTech Global Interposer Workshop coming in November

The fifth annual GaTech Interposer workshop is coming Nov 4-6. With 2.5 and 3D being buzzwords, many conferences have interposer presentations. But the GaTech conference does the best job of bringing together practitioners from silicon, laminate and glass segments of this leading edge technology. This year’s conference is led by Rao Tummala (the Godfather of packaging) and Matt Nowak of Qualcomm, and Subu Iyer, who recently retired from IBM to teach at UCLA.

Highlight presentations include:

• Bob Sankman (Intel) – EMIB packaging
• Dave McCann (Global Foundries) – ASIC and RF with 2.5D technology
• Doug Yu (TSMC) – InFO
• Suresh Ramalingam (Xilinx) – SLIT (a TSV-less interconnect technology)
• Ron Huemoeller(Amkor) – Advance fan out: SWIFT and SLIM
• Bryan Black (AMD) – The road to AMD’s Fuji dGPU Chip
• DC Hu (Unimicron) – Glass manufacturing readiness
• Tomoyuki Yamada (Kyocera) – Organic interposers

Hope to see you all in Atlanta!

For all the latest on 2.5/3D and other advanced packaging stay linked to IFTLE.