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2005 KGD Workshop Summary
The Die Products Consortium hosted the 12th Annual KGD Packaging and Test Workshop in Napa , California on September 11th through the 14th. The workshop was attended by 168 persons representing 97 institutions in 15 countries. There were 3 tutorials, 35 technical presentation, one panel session and 25 tabletop exhibits. The general chair of the event was Eef Bagerman of Philips Semiconductors.
To support the workshop theme of Design Success: KGD Starts at the Beginning, two tutorials focused on the early stages of product development, Chip/Package Co-Design and KGD Testing. The message from these tutorials was that the tools and techniques to support bare die in advanced packages are either available today, or being developed. However, these technologies will forever change the business-as-usual paradigm that has kept chip design, test, packaging and assembly as separate disciplines. Success in implementation of these technologies demands an integration of these functions.
The keynote speaker, Joe Adam, VP of Strategic Marketing at Skyworks Inc., set the tone for the workshop by highlighting the applicable sections of the iNEMI and ITRS roadmaps that refer to System in Package (SiP) technology growth rates. As was stressed in the tutorial session 1, tools and methodologies to address chip and package co-design will be critical to the widespread adoption of SiP technologies.
The rest of Session 1 complemented the keynote well, with presentations covering worldwide markets for SiP, Sip technology currently seen in consumer mobile products, advanced packaging tren ds in Europe and manufacturing capability in China. Each of these overview presentations provided an excellent backdrop for the more technical presentations that took place on Tuesday.
Session 1 ended with a panel discussion that had a different twist to it. Each of the panelists was given a fictitious company and a real SiP technology and the challenge to "sell" the technology to the audience (playing venture capitalis ts). The panelists and technologies were:
Panelist |
Technology |
Joe Adam |
Folding flexible substrate SiP |
Lee Smith |
Stacked die SiP |
Marcos Karnezos |
Thru-Si via stacking SiP |
Stan Mihelcic |
Package on Package SiP |
Linda Matthew |
Planar MCM |
Georg Meyer-Berg |
Package in Package SiP |
The audience had a ballot (in the form of a blank check) and could vote for the best technology/presentation. Georg Meyer-Berg's presentation on Package-in-Package SiP received the most votes. The panelists all did a good job of highlighting the strengths of their assigned technologies.
The first day of the workshop ended with the traditional exhibitor reception in the fountain court - again providing excellent networking opportunities for attendees.
On Tuesday, the format for the technical presentation shifted to parallel sessions, with Session 2 and 4 comprising the KGD Technologies and Test track, while sessions 3 and 5 comprising the Assembly and SiP Enabling Technologies track. Session 2 included a variety of presentations on varian ts of KGD Technologies. Andreas Reithofer, Infineon Technologies reported on testing integrated pressure sensors at the wafer level. The IC technology was built in 0.5 µm BiCMOS with the pressure sensor of micro-machined silicon. This type of challenge is one that will be more prevalent as companies look to integrate ICs with MEMs devices.
One of the interesting aspects of the workshop this year was the inclusion of several presentations on passive components , both embedded and discrete. The challenges for handling discrete components was highlighted in Session 3 on Assembly. A presentation by Tom Baggio of Panasonic Factory Automation discussed the advances needed in assembly equipment to enable handling the extremely small form factor passive componen ts being used in today's advanced packages.
Session 4 focused on KGD and SiP testing. System in Package (SiP) technologies are becoming mainstream now, especially in the cell phone han ds et market. This puts more emphasis on KGD and system test. This session had presentations focus on DRAM, discrete power devices, rf devices and tester hardware, illustrating that the various segmen ts of the industry are converging to provide cost effective KGD solutions.
Session 5 addressed SiP enabling technologies. Since SiP is the main application for die products , especially bare die, this session included discussions of processes, design, logistics and assembly approaches that address bottlenecks in the SiP acquisition process. As an example, Daniel Loughmiller, Micron Technology, Inc. disclosed a DRAM design improvement that increases the charge storage in a DRAM cell, allowing more margin on the refresh cycle - a specific issue with standard DRAMs that usually utilizes burn-in as a reliability screen.
The annual workshop banquet was held at the V. Sattui winery again this year. Busses transported the attendees to the winery, where they were treated to a winery tour, wine tasting, a reception and dinner.
Mike Roughton , the executive director of the Encast network in Europe , was presented the Industry Achievement Award for 2005.
On Wednesday, the workshop technical session 6 transitioned back to a single track to discuss chip to package co-design for SiP technologies. As we had heard in the opening tutorial, the design and verification of SiP applications is a daunting challenge, for which tools are just now becoming available. Session 6 provided attendees more in depth background of the problem, for standar ds that are being developed, to cost modeling for understanding cost/performance tradeoffs, to design and test solutions specifically aimed at SiP. Thomas Brandtner, Infineon Technologies gave a very detailed step-by-step design flow for SiP that highlighted the methodologies required to do "first time right" co-design with a 7 die module.
The feedback for the workshop was again very positive, with speakers, program and networking time all receiving high marks again this year. We are actively soliciting members of the technical committee who will be helping to develop the 13th Annual KGD Packaging and Test Workshop for next year.
Please contact Larry Gilg (512-452-0077) if you have interest in helping.