BERLIN – The second incarnation of a panel level packaging consortium, PLC 2.0, investigated warpage and die shift in large format reconfigured panels (18" x 24"), and considerable progress has been made toward understanding the root causes. With these insights, the relevant parameters can now be controlled better to enable large-area fine-line RDL processes. The analytical effort has paid off, as RDL could be scaled down considerably on the panel level, making the most of the advantages of both wafer and panel-level technologies and paving the way for an entirely new process chain with new equipment and materials.

Building on this achievement, the consortium’s partners are now expecting 12 months of agile progress with developing and managing viable process options on the road to a complete high-yield process chain. The test structures for electrochemical migration tests were also designed in accordance with the IPC standard. The design of the test vehicles was guided by the standard’s description of the IPC multi-purpose test board, but with the structure sizes matched to the geometries reflecting the goals of the PLC 2.0 project as interdigital structures.

Researching a combination of economic and environmental assessments to promote more sustainable production approaches is another strong part of the PLC 2.0. A first model to estimate the carbon footprint of the PLP technology has already been established. This first calculation will help all members identify the most energy-intensive stages and further improve the data quality in the most relevant steps.

“What makes me happy about our work is seeing such a diverse consortium coming together and making progress toward one shared goal: finding future manufacturing technologies for maximum integration density on the panel level,” said Tanja Braun, group leader, Fraunhofer IZM.

New equipment for panel level packaging was installed during the run-up to PLC 2.0, which began in 2020 and will run through 2022, and the project benefits from several major investments made by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to promote the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany.

The impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown restricted access to laboratory work and to the research network of the Fraunhofer IZM, leading to the work plan for the PLC 2.0 being extended by four months. All meetings of the first year were organized in virtual format with two dedicated sessions for the relevant Asia and US time zones.

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