Dec 5 2007
A key industry milestone has been reached today surrounding the handling and processing of ultrathin wafers. In their ongoing joint development work, EV Group (EVG), a leading supplier of wafer-bonding and lithography equipment for the advanced semiconductor and packaging, MEMS, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and emerging nanotechnology markets, and Brewer Science, Inc., the pioneer of industry-enabling technologies solutions for the semiconductor/microelectronics chemicals and equipment marketplace, unveiled they have demonstrated temporary wafer bonding capabilities for a wide range of backside processes, including through-silicon vias (TSVs) and backside metallization.
This latest achievement further validates the viability of the companies' unique approach, which is optimized for high-temperature advanced packaging applications. In July 2007, EVG and Brewer Science announced that they had combined the Brewer Science WaferBOND HT coating materials with EVG's proven EVG850TB/DB temporary wafer bonding/debonding platform to create the industry's first high-yield, high-performance solution for simultaneously debonding and cleaning sub-100-micron thinned wafers up to 300mm in diameter.
The solution resulted from a multi-year partnership formed to address growing industry demand for flexible, yet reliable, processes and equipment that can accommodate the challenges associated with increasingly thin and fragile product wafers -- particularly for advanced 3D and wafer-level packaging approaches. Both EVG and Brewer Science are committed to speeding commercialization of TSVs for 3D chip stacking, as evidenced by their membership in the EMC-3D Consortium, of which EVG is also a co-founder.
Stefan Pargfrieder, EVG Business Development Manager, said, "The progress of EVG's joint work with Brewer Science has surpassed our expectations. In less than 18 months since initiating this development effort, we have successfully brought to market a manufacturing process superior to anything previously available. Moreover, demonstrating its use for TSVs, given the importance of this technology to both companies and to the industry overall, is crucial to enabling broad industry adoption of this approach."
Jim Lamb, Director of Corporate Business Development with Brewer Science, concurs, "These initial results offer a compelling substantiation of the value and cost-effectiveness of using our polymeric, spin-on WaferBOND HT system with the EVG850 platform in high-volume manufacturing environments. Three-dimensional device stacking is essential to producing multifunctional devices with improved performance and compact footprints. High-temperature processing compatibility and fast debonding processing times of less than 5 minutes are important attributes to furthering the viable production capability of this innovative technology."