United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today introduced a Thick Plated Copper (TPC) process for power management IC (PMIC) applications.
The TPC solution, developed with Taiwan-based packaging house Chipbond Technology Corp. (6147, TWO), provides thick plated copper layers to achieve higher current flow and better thermal dissipation, reducing chip resistance by 20% or more compared with conventional Aluminum top metal, thus increasing power conversion efficiency and extending battery life. Furthermore, since the integrated converter requires fewer and smaller passive components for the power system, the resulting smaller size printed circuit boards makes the application ideal for slim profile mobile power management products such as smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks.
"Today's ever-evolving portable digital applications place greater demands for slimmer products while maintaining longer battery life," said Anchor Chen, senior director of the Specialty Technology Development division at UMC. "Working with Chipbond, we are pleased to offer UMC customers an integrated service for a TPC process to address these requirements at chip-level to enhance end-product performance while reducing size. We look forward to the rapid adoption of this solution as we roll-out our TPC process for a variety of UMC technologies."
The TPC solution is now ready for UMC 8" BCD (Bipolar/CMOS/DMOS) processes including 0.35um, 0.25um, and 0.18um nodes, with 0.11um available in the coming months. Validated design rules will be provided to customers by UMC and Chipbond, with qualification reports available upon request.
Source: http://www.umc.com