For the fourth consecutive year, the Impress Lounge played host to the 3D InCites Awards Ceremony, during which individuals, companies, and products were recognized by their peers for excellence in 3D packaging technologies. This year, we mixed it up a bit, and rather than recognize the processes, materials, designs and tools developed to enable advanced wafer level packaging (WLP), we focused on the devices themselves, and the people who made them happen.
We’d like to acknowledge both the nominees and the winners, as collectively, your work has been critical to the commercialization of such game-changing packaging technologies as fan-out wafer level packaging (FOWLP), interposer-based packages, 3D stacks, 3D system-in-package (SiP) and more. We’d also like to thank Leslie Tugman, Executive Director of SEMI Foundation, for presenting the keynote talk about the SEMI High Tech U program. Lastly, thank you to the Impress Foundation, for supporting this effort, and to KLA-Tencor, Platinum Sponsors; and Yole Dévéloppement and Amkor Technology, Inc. this year’s Silver Sponsors. Without their generosity, we would not have been able to donate the $2500 3D InCites Scholarship to a graduate of SEMI High Tech U. This year’s winners by category are:
Device of the Year: SWIFT™ – Amkor Technology Inc.
SWIFT was uniquely developed to deliver a high yielding, high-performance package with the thinnest profile in the industry. This package can deliver 2µm line/space lithography with up to 4 layers of RDL and a very dense network of memory interface vias from bottom package to the top package at a very cost competitive price.
Engineer of the Year: Bryan Black, Sr. Fellow, AMD, and his team
AMD’s use of silicon interposers with 65,000 through silicon vias (TSVs) and a logic die in the center of four HBM stacks with four DRAM each in its Fiji processor represents a major engineering achievement. Fiji has 4X bandwidth improvement per watt over AMD’s Radeon™ R9 290X. It has a 4,096-bit memory interface with four stacks creating 512GB/s of bandwidth, which is 60% more bandwidth than the Radeon™ R9 290X.
Fabless of the Year: Invensas, a Tessera Company
Invensas technologies ZiBond® and Direct Bond Interconnect (DBI®) are at the forefront of enabling the adoption of wafer-to-wafer, die-to-die and die-to-wafer bonding in the volume production of image sensors, MEMS, 3D IC and other semiconductor packaging applications.
Supplier of the Year: Invensas, a Tessera Company
With this year’s acquisition of Ziptronix technology and the integration of its DBI process into the Invensas product line, Invensas now offers the industry’s highest density, smallest footprint, lowest profile and lowest cost 2.5D and 3D IC integration platform to address the upcoming 2.5/3D-IC market growth.
OSAT of the Year: NANIUM
NANIUM is a leader in 300mm wafer-level packaging (WLP), both Fan-In/ WLCSP, but mainly Fan-Out/ WLFO based on eWLB technology. The company is well recognized in the packaging community worldwide and was awarded by several of its customers and co-operation partners emphasizing the high level of engineering and innovation creating leading-edge packaging solutions such as FOWLP based WLSiP and WL3D. NANIUM is the largest OSAT in Europe and strongly engaged in activities strengthening this part of the semiconductor supply chain.
Research Institute of the Year: Fraunhofer Cluster for 3D Integration
The Fraunhofer Cluster for 3D Integration is represented by the Fraunhofer IZM-ASSID, Fraunhofer ENAS, Fraunhofer IIS/EAS, Fraunhofer IKTS, Fraunhofer IPMS. The Fraunhofer 3D Cluster looks at the system from all perspectives from functionality, design, technology, performance and reliability and provides an integrated solution as a system integrator. The complete value chain is available inside the cluster to serve the customer for successful 3D solutions.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Phil Garrou
Since his retirement from Dow Chemical in 2004, Phil Garrou has provided information as a consultant, expert witness and reporter of high-end packaging information with a focus on 2.5 / 3D Integration. He is being recognized for the insights that he provided via his blog, his involvement in the IEEE 3D-IC and RTI 3D-ASIP conferences and for publishing the first series of Handbooks on 3D ICs.
Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you to all who participated in the 2016 3D InCites Award Program. We look forward to next year and hope you will join us again in recognizing excellence in 3D packaging technologies. ~ F.v.T
