Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers In its latest move to cut costs and focus on its core business, GlobalFoundries (GF) has announced plans to jettison its U.S. photomask operations in Burlington, Vt., but the foundry vendor will maintain a stake in its joint venture mask unit. Under the plan, Toppan Photomasks will acquire certain assets of GF’s Burlington photomask facility. “GF is transferring its mask tool... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 25


Panel-level consortium Fraunhofer is moving forward with the next phase of its consortium to develop technologies for panel-level packaging. In 2016, Fraunhofer launched the original effort, dubbed the Panel Level Packaging Consortium. The consortium, which had 17 partners, developed various equipment and materials in the arena. Several test layouts were designed for process development on ... » read more

Panel Fan-out Ramps, Challenges Remain


After years of R&D, panel-level fan-out packaging is finally beginning to ramp up in the market, at least in limited volumes for a few vendors. However, panel-level fan-out, which is an advanced form of today’s fan-out packaging, still faces several technical and cost challenges to bring this technology into the mainstream or high-volume manufacturing. Moreover, several companies are d... » read more

Litho Options For Panel Fan-out


Several packaging houses are inching closer to production of panel-level fan-out packaging, a next-generation technology that promises to reduce the cost of today’s fan-out packages. In fact, ASE, Nepes, Samsung and others already have installed the equipment in their panel-level fan-out lines with production slated for 2018 or so. But behind the scenes, panel-level packaging houses contin... » read more

Cheaper Fan-Outs Ahead


Packaging houses continue to ramp up fan-out wafer-level packages in the market, but customers want lower cost fan-out products for a broader range of applications, such as consumer, RF and smartphones. So in R&D, the industry for some time has been developing next-generation fan-out using a panel-level format, a technology that could potentially lower the cost of fan-out. But there are ... » read more

Challenges For Future Fan-Outs


The fan-out wafer-level packaging market is heating up. At the high end, for example, several packaging houses are developing new fan-out packages that could reach a new milestone and hit or break the magic 1µm line/space barrier. But the technology presents some challenges, as it may require more expensive process flows and equipment like lithography. Fig. 1: Redistribution layers. Source: L... » read more

What Next For OSATs


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss IC-packaging and business trends with Tien Wu, chief operating officer at Taiwan’s Advanced Semiconductor Engineering ([getentity id="22930" comment="ASE"]), the world’s largest outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) vendor. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What’s the outlook for the IC industry in 2017? Wu:... » read more

OSAT Biz: Growth And Challenges


Amid a challenging business environment, the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) industry is projected to see steady to strong growth in a number of packaging segments this year. Right now, the [getkc id="83" kc_name="OSATs"]—which provide third-party IC-packaging and test services—are seeing brisk demand for both legacy and advanced chip packages. In addition, IDMs continu... » read more

Packaging Wars Begin


The advanced IC-packaging market is turning into a high-stakes competitive battleground, as vendors ramp up the next wave of [getkc id="82" kc_name="2.5D"]/[getkc id="42" kc_name="3D"] technologies, high-density fan-out packages and others. At one time, the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test ([getkc id="83" comment="OSAT"]) vendors dominated and handled the chip-packaging requirement... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers Samsung has rolled out the Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator, an appliance that changes the landscape in the refrigerator market. The refrigerator comes with a 21.5-inch LCD touchscreen, which serves as the digital command center and connects to a smartphone. It enables consumers to view inside the fridge with a smartphone while grocery shopping. It can access music or television cont... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →