Manufacturing productivity improvements for PBGA and flip chip substrates in PWB factory

This paper discusses the new techniques applied to a conventional PWB manufacturing line to improve productivity and maximize capacity for PBGA and flip chip substrate products. We discuss equipment modifications and processing productivity improvements in the areas of test, handling, panel layout and singulation. The challenge has been to create process steps to match specific and sometimes unique requirements, which often resulted in sub optimization of the product through the factory standard 19.5"×24" panel. Traditional PWB card dimensions range from one up on a standard panel size to cards as small as 3"×5" repeated within the panel framework. These panels are typically profiled to final shipped format and do not have symmetrical dimensions. With the industry trends for PBGA and flip chip substrates evolving to higher I/O, less space, chip scale packaging, and large volumes, productivity has a direct correlation to panel utilization. PBGA sizes, typically square or rectangular, allow for improved optimization through the use of processes that are typically seen in wafer and ceramic substrate manufacturing. The singulation and testing equipment required a high degree of cross industry thinking to integrate it within the conventional PWB equipment set. We describe specific changes to the factory, which includes modified equipment for singulation and processing. We also describe the advantages and challenges that each of the improvements has to overall throughput and cost efficiency in the PWB line. Finally we demonstrate how we executed significant improvements to the quality and consistency of the final product