-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueBox Build
One trend is to add box build and final assembly to your product offering. In this issue, we explore the opportunities and risks of adding system assembly to your service portfolio.
IPC APEX EXPO 2024 Pre-show
This month’s issue devotes its pages to a comprehensive preview of the IPC APEX EXPO 2024 event. Whether your role is technical or business, if you're new-to-the-industry or seasoned veteran, you'll find value throughout this program.
Boost Your Sales
Every part of your business can be evaluated as a process, including your sales funnel. Optimizing your selling process requires a coordinated effort between marketing and sales. In this issue, industry experts in marketing and sales offer their best advice on how to boost your sales efforts.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
DEK, K&S Team at SEMICON West
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
SAN JOSE, Calif.- At SEMICON West, Flemington, N.J.-based DEK and Willow Grove, Pa.-based Kulicke & Soffa (K&S) came together, blending technologies to make the most of each other's strengths.
The alliance between the two companies began a few years ago, when K&S approached DEK after they began developing an ultrafine wire bonding process. The company wanted the thick printing to be compatible with conventional transfer molding, and called DEK to develop a printing solution.
To that end, DEK and K&S exhibited its StenSEAL encapsulation process at K&S' booth, which was designed to reduce the cost for purchasing capital equipment by more than two thirds, giving engineers looking to qualify new materials an equipment advantage. In this depressed but recovering market, driving down the cost of equipment is crucial.
After substrates are wire bonded, Kulicke's NoSWEEP encapsulant is applied to prevent shorts, and then UV cured on a K&S wirebonder. This addresses the issues surrounding printing between wires in a wire bond, according to Jeff Schake, senior advanced technology specialist for DEK.
The substrate is presented to the Infinity screen printer, where it is rotated to 45 control of the material flow within the large apertures around the die area while maintaining the substrate's native orientation for conventional transport.
DEK uses a very thick stencil, and the material is held within the ProFlow DirEKt Imaging head. "This is instrumental to the success because the system does not introduce air when it is printing across large apertures," said Ricky Bennett, manager of DEK's applied product development group, adding that conventional squeegees do introduce air, which can then introduce unacceptable voids.
The system crossfills the large aperture with encapsulant and the substrate drops, re-orientating itself. The substrate goes on to cure, the method for which varies by material and device type.
This alternative to transfer molding offers flexibility benefits, in addition to decreased capital investment.
Reaction to the process at SEMICON West was good, Bennett said, especially for different kinds of applications.
Tessera's μZ-Ball Draws Interest
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Tessera Technologies, a developer of intellectual property and services for chip scale and multichip packages (CSP, MCP), revealed the new μZ-Ball Stacked multichip memory package on the tradeshow floor at SEMICON West.
This piqued interest among attending OEMs. By stacking high-performance CSPs, hardware and assembly engineers can pre-test memory components separately, then add capacity using standard surface mount processes. μBGA technology incorporated in the package reduces size while enhancing performance, which saves board real estate for overall product size reduction or increased functionality.
This revolutionary MCP arrangement makes for a package that is at least 40 percent smaller than a standard TSOP. The two-die version also can be 20 percent thinner. μBGA technology to the stacked package enhances performance by shortening electrical paths at the packaging, board and system levels, while improving reliability by relieving mechanical stress resulting from coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch of the semiconductor device and PCB.
The μZ-Ball Stacked package can support traditional DRAM and emerging package outlines and footprints, giving OEMs and memory manufacturers an option for next-generation product development. Tessera currently is sampling this new, stacked-chip package with several licensees, and the technology will be available to the semiconductor industry in Q4 of this year. Phu Le of Payton Technology, a strategic partner of Kingston Technology, commented in a Tessera press release that this new offering enables Payton to incrementally add DRAM capacity while using their current assembly infrastructure.
This technology can be used in building memory modules used in servers, workstations and various other computing and portable electronic products.