All That Glitters

08/01/2007

Semiconductor Packaging Materials, Armonk, NY

1. First stop on the All That Glitters tour was Semiconductor Packaging Materials in Armonk, NY - worldwide manufacturers of metal-based electronic packaging materials. Left to right: Diane Donnelly, national sales manager, Advanced Packaging; Paul Nikac, VP of operations, SPM; Charles M. Italiano, engineering manager, SPM; Meredith Courtemanche, assistant editor, Advanced Packaging; Anthony Grodio, director of operations, SPM; Vito Tanzi, VP of sales, SPM; and Françoise von Trapp, managing editor, Advanced Packaging. Click here to enlarge image

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2. Lester Williams, assistant manager, rolling/cladding department, demonstrates the process of cladding copper strip with aluminum. Click here to enlarge image

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3. SPM custom fabricates tools for stamping precise and uniform parts, and has over 4,500 different die designed to customer specifications. Click here to enlarge image

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4. Solder preforms, braze alloy preforms, bond pads, clad material substrates, and heatsinks are just some of the stamped parts manufactured by SPM. Click here to enlarge image

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5. Tanzi explains the cold working process in which wire is drawn, in successive passes, through a die that is slightly smaller than the diameter of the rod to achieve the desired diameter.Click here to enlarge image

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6. Heavy-gauge aluminum wire is pulled through a mill, annealed, and spooled to create aluminum ribbon used for ribbon bonds on high-power packages. Click here to enlarge image

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7. A spool of fine gold wire goes through an optical inspection before shipping to the customer. Click here to enlarge image

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8. A tape-and-reel packaging machine is loading tape with aluminum-clad copper bond pads, positioning the parts to land copper-side down, so they are ready for the pick-and-place tool.Click here to enlarge image

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1. At Heraeus’ Contact Materials Division in West Conshohocken, PA, representatives joined us from all corners of the world. Back row: left to right are Jack Ding, manager CMD-AM Dept., Heraeus Material Technology Shanghai Ltd.; Christina Kistler, manager of marketing services, Heraeus; Chris Platt, publisher, Advanced Packaging; Paul Niemczura, manager of technology development, Heraeus; Sonny Zielinski, production manager. Front row: Courtemanche; von Trapp; Hans-Werner Hagedorn, corporate R&D manager, assembly materials, W.C. Heraeus, Hanau, Germany; Rick Lathrop, manager, applications and customer support for SMT and semiconductor products; Donnelly; and Bob Collopy, digital media manager, Advanced Packaging. Click here to enlarge image

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2. Ron Bacon, QC technician, prints paste for analysis. Click here to enlarge image

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3. Krupali Patel, chemist, uses infrared spectroscopy to measure inorganic compounds through substantive analysis. Click here to enlarge image

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4. Lathrop explains the Benchmarker II test board for testing lead-free performance of various materials in different applications. Click here to enlarge image

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5. Lathrop designed a special nozzle adaptation for a pick-and-place tool to handle miniscule copper preforms. Click here to enlarge image

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6. This environmental control unit (ECU) allows Lathrop to test materials in different environments. Click here to enlarge image

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7. Lathrop explains coplanarity to von Trapp, against the backdrop of the May 2005 Advanced Packaging cover, featuring a wafer bump stencil he designed.Click here to enlarge image

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1. At Kulicke & Soffa’s world headquarters in Fort Washington, PA, Christian Rheault, VP ball bonder business unit; and Paul Reid, product marketing director, equipment division, brought us up to speed on K&S corporate strategy and plans for the next-generation bonding tool, now in development. Left to right: Rheault; Courtemanche; Donnelly; von Trapp; Reid; Vince McTaggart, product manager; and Platt. Click here to enlarge image

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2. Jon Brunner, senior process engineer, demonstrated wire bonders in the applications lab, showing us how the Ultra forms ball to wedge and stitch bonds. Click here to enlarge image

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3. Virginia Motta, metrology technician, uses a Dage cold pull tester to measure the amount of pressure it takes to shear the ball off the bond pad. Click here to enlarge image

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4. Wafer-level stud bumping for flip chip uses the same technology as forming the first bond of gold ball bonding. This tool can create 36 standard bumps/sec. Click here to enlarge image

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5. Zhijie Wang, Peter Lister, Paul Sucro, Gordon Tang, vision software engineers, are working on the next-generation tool. Click here to enlarge image

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6. Horst Clauberg, Ph.D., senior scientist, demonstrates how he uses a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to check ball placement position on a bond pad.Click here to enlarge image

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7. Courtemanche, von Trapp, and Donnelly share a Kodak moment with Scott Kulicke, chairman of the board and CEO, Kulicke & Soffa.Click here to enlarge image

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