New material deposition technologies for advanced packaging [IC packaging]

Survival in today´s competitive electronics market continues to depend on advances in manufacturing technology. For example, the transition to 300 mm wafers has become for many semiconductor manufacturers inevitability in their highly cost-sensitive market. The whole advanced packaging business is growing enormously and the push for wafer-level packaging is driven by the high potential to save cost by advanced bumping processes. Area array packages (flip chip, CSP and BGA) require the formation of bumps for the board assembly. Here cost effective bumping methods are needed which are not limited by the throughput, minimal pitch and yield. The industry is currently searching for new and lower cost bumping approaches to avoid high investment costs for the process equipment. Furthermore, in the field of advanced packaging there is a demand for high process flexibility. This includes that other materials like adhesives or epoxies must be deposited on the wafer or on boards. Due to the demand of the industry to transfer the production to 300 mm wafers, these deposition processes must be suitable for this wafer size.