Intent in fostering collaborative innovation across the supply chain, Yole Développement and the National Center for Advanced Packaging (NCAP) teamed up to present the first Advanced Packaging and Integration Technology Symposium, August 28, 2014, in Wuxi, China. The one-day event attracted international participation from 48 organizations, with strong high level (52% executives) and Chinese (70%) representation.
Both partners declared the event successful, and said it is the first step of a promising collaboration between both organizations (Figure 1). “The Advanced Packaging Technology Symposium has been a great source of information exchanges and networking. We had several discussions and questions during all the sessions and a very interactive debate,” noted Rozalia Beica, CTO & Business Unit Director, Advanced Packaging and Semiconductor Manufacturing, Yole Développement. “This event has been a great success and this could not have been possible without the great collaboration between NCAP and Yole and participation of all the speakers and engaging audience.” The market research, technology and strategy consulting company sees opportunity for the advanced packaging industry in Greater China, and as such is working to increase its existing network in this geographic area.
Key players of the advanced packaging area attended the event and exchanged their vision on the growth of this segment, the challenges seen in the industry with the new emerging technologies, and the new solutions developed to address them.
The symposium’s aim was to present the status of the advanced packaging industry and its latest innovations: interposers, 3D integration technologies, sensors, related MEMS packages, and manufacturing processes. Industrial experts from various organizations across the supply chain addressed these topics.
Several presentations and panel discussions focused on fan-out technology and manufacturing readiness at panel level. During the “Interposer & 3D Integration Technology” session, Max Lu, Deputy Director of Engineering Center, SPIL, presented SPIL’s fan-out activities. “At SPIL, we are developing our own fan-out technology, which will fulfill next generation mobile and networking product applications,” said Lu. He added that 300mm wafer form is the current focus and SPIL will continue monitor the industry infrastructure readiness of panel level.
During the “Manufacturing Challenges“ session, Jérôme Azémar, Technology & Market Analyst, Advanced Packaging at Yole Développement, highlighted the high interest of embedded technologies including fan-out and embedded dies technologies. “Fan-out and embedded dies are two promising packages,” said Azémar. “They allow better integration, better electrical performance, better heat management, and even lower cost depending on the application. The discussions we had during the symposium highlighted the added-value of panel manufacturing for fan-out and the need of further developing the infrastructure to support it.”
During the “Sensors and MEMS packages” session, Herb Huang, Ph. D, Senior Director at SMIC, talked about the availability several new packaging technologies, including through silicon via (TSV). “TSV alone is not an assumed technology solution for automatic 3D upgrade or replacement of existing SiP. System approaches should be taken in design and commercialization of TSV based 2.5/3D SiP and 3D IC,” he said.
Albert Ou, Manager of Corporate R&D at the ASE Group outlined several TSV scenarios, a wafer-level assemby-enabled Wafer Level SiP (WL SiP) platform, and a new form factor standard to develop the industry’s smallest sensor.
Interposers were also part of the main discussion, and it was clear that this technology is not destined only for high-end packages in the future. “Lower cost options are being developed such as glass and organic-based interposers and could become potential solutions for low and mid-end applications,” reports Azémar.
“Collaborative innovation across the supply chain is necessary for the development and commercialization of advanced packaging technologies in the industry,” said Dongkai Shangguan, CEO at NCAP, “NCAP will continue to partner with OEMs and IC design houses, as well as foundries, OSATs, and equipment and materials suppliers, to develop total solutions in order to address the future technological needs of the packaging industry. We are forming several industry consortia around certain critical technical areas, and we welcome the active participation of our partners from the industry.”
Based on this success of this event, NCAP and Yole said they are planning to continue the collaboration with the establishment of an annual event. NCAP and Yole will keep the Advanced Packaging Community informed about the organization of this event. For further information about the Advanced Packaging Technology Symposium, 2014 session, please contact Camille Veyrier at Yole Développement.
