Sacrificial Laser Release Materials For RDL-First Fan-Out Packaging


The semiconductor industry is in a new age where device scaling will not continue to provide the cost reductions or performance improvements at a similar rate to past years when Moore’s law was the guiding principle for IC scaling. The cost of scaling below 7 nm nodes is rising substantially and requires significant investment in capital equipment and R&D spending for next-generation lithogra... » read more

Extending The IC Roadmap


An Steegen, executive vice president of semiconductor technology and systems at Imec, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss IC scaling and chip packaging. Imec is working on next-generation transistors, but it is also developing several new technologies for IC packaging, such as a proprietary silicon bridge, a cooling technology and packaging modules. What follows are excerpts of t... » read more

Analog Migration Equals Redesign


Analog design has never been easy. Engineers can spend their entire careers focused just on phase-locked loops (PLLs), because to get them right the functionality of circuits need to be understood in depth, including how they respond across different process corners and different manufacturing processes. In the finFET era, those challenges have only intensified for analog circuits. Reuse, fo... » read more

Early Chip-Package-System Thermal Analysis


Next-generation automotive, HPC and networking applications are pushing the requirements of thermal integrity and reliability, as they need to operate in extreme conditions for extended periods of time. FinFET designs have high dynamic power density, and power directly impacts the thermal signature of the chip. Thermal degradation typically occurs over an extended period of chip operation. ... » read more

Tech Talk: HBM vs. GDDR6


Frank Ferro, senior director of product management at Rambus, talks about memory bottlenecks and why both GDDR6 and high-bandwidth memory are gaining steam and for which markets. https://youtu.be/CPqdZZooS2g     Related Video GDDR6 – HBM2 Tradeoffs (2019) What type of DRAM works best where. » read more

Tech Talk: Shrink Vs. Package


Andy Heinig, group manager for system integration at Fraunhofer EAS, talks about the tradeoffs between planar design and advanced packaging, including different types of interposers, chiplets and thermal issues. https://youtu.be/1BDqgCujJno » read more

The Case For Chiplets


Discussion about chiplets is growing as the cost of developing chips at 10/7nm and beyond passes well beyond the capabilities of many chipmakers. Estimates for developing 5nm chips (the equivalent 3nm for TSMC and Samsung) are well into the hundreds of millions of dollars just for the NRE costs alone. Masks costs will be in the double-digit millions of dollars even with EUV. And that's assum... » read more

MIS Packaging Takes Off


Momentum is building for IC packages based on an emerging technology called molded interconnect substrate (MIS). ASE, Carsem, JCET/STATS ChipPAC, Unisem and others are developing IC packages based on MIS substrate technology, which is ramping up in the analog, power IC and even the cryptocurrency markets. MIS starts with a specialized substrate material for select IC packages. The MIS sub... » read more

Package Designers Need Assembly-Level LVS For HDAP Verification


While advanced IC packaging is a fast-growing market, comprehensive package verification still has a ways to go. Unique package connectivity issues, such as missing or misplaced interposer/package bumps/pads, pin naming and text labeling issues, and the like, require new and enhanced LVS-like verification techniques that can move across the entire package to ensure proper connectivity and perfo... » read more

More Nodes, New Problems


The rollout of leading-edge process nodes is accelerating rather than slowing down, defying predictions that device scaling would begin to subside due to rising costs and the increased difficulty of developing chips at those nodes. Costs are indeed rising. So are the number of design rules, which reflect skyrocketing complexity stemming from multiple patterning, more devices on a chip, and m... » read more

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