By Francoise von Trapp On Jan. 18, 2012
Earlier this week, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. announced it had “developed the world's first fully automated 12-inch (300 millimeters) wafer bonding machine, capable of producing 3-dimensionally integrated LSI (large-scale integration) circuits at room temperature.” This tool is targeted to the MEMS, 3D LSI's, and the RF market. I was skeptical of the words “world’s first” when I know Read More>>
By Francoise von Trapp On Dec. 20, 2011
The supply chain business model for manufacturing 3D stacked ICS has caused perhaps one of the hottest debates so far in commercializing 3D semiconductor processes.  It’s easy to see why. Beyond the rather obvious question of who will own the liability of damaged devices, there’s a good deal of revenue at stake for those who make the investment in adding capacity for middle end of the line (MEOL) Read More>>
By Francoise von Trapp On Jul. 27, 2011
“Keeping busy” doesn’t begin to describe what’s happening at EV Group these days. I sat down with Markus Wimplinger, Corporate Technology Development and IP Director, EVG,  at SEMICON West for a full briefing of the company’s latest corporate and technology developments.  Remaining true to their mission of “invent, innovate, implement” gave us a lot to talk about. Technology DevelopmentsFirst Read More>>
By Q3D Notes On Jul. 19, 2011
An excerpt from  the Semiconductor Assembly Blog by Andy C. Mackie, Global Product Manager for Indium Corporation's Semiconductor and Advanced Assembly Materials. For reasons that I will discuss in a post later this year, a common factor that is emerging in the area of copper-pillar microbump 2.5D and 3D joining, is the adoption of thermocompression (TC) bonding for flip-chip flux/microbump soldering. Read More>>
By Francoise von Trapp On Jun. 13, 2011
I ask you, could there be a better place to host a conference dedicated to micro and nano electronics than Disney World, the place where all things are possible? This year’s event boasted the greatest turnout so far, (over 1000 attendees) and had such an abundance of papers that the committees could be highly selective in the ones they chose, ensuring a ‘cream of the crop’ technical agenda, between Read More>>