LYON, FRANCE -- Wafer-level-package use will exceed 10 billion units per year by 2012, a compound annual growth rate of more than 20% over the next five years.

However, demand may exceed supply, and a shortage of 300 mm wafer-level CSPs is likely, according to research firm Yole Développement's latest study.

WLCSPs are finding use in power supplies, connectivity (Bluetooth, WLAN); and other features (FM, GPS, TV on mobile, camera).
Wafer‐level packaging of MEMS devices is also expected to grow fast, driven here too by the handset market and its fast increasing rate of integrated sensors (MEMS microphones, accelerometers, gyroscopes, pressure and magnetic sensors).

Early reliability issues have been largely improved with time, using new design rules and materials wafer-level-packaged parts now comfortably pass thermal cycling and drop qualification stress tests for consumer applications with extended die sizes up to 20 mm², Yole says. Some WLCSP devices can also be found in automotive applications, which may well represent a future growth sector.

But it appears that during the recent economic downturn, the semiconductor packaging industry as a whole failed to anticipate this demand and did not plan sufficient WLCSP production capacity for the coming months, Yole says. In particular, a shortage of 300 mm wafer capacity for WLCSP is very likely to occur during the next quarters. However, significant investments are being made by a few industry leaders to develop future WLP technologies, like fan‐out WLCSP or chip embedding, which will extend the reach of WLP to larger ICs and enable the combination of small size chip‐scale packaging with low profile 3-D System‐in‐Package. In this WLP‐ 2009 report, you will find detailed technical and market status and forecasts on WLP technologies and applications.

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