• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.139-149
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• 2012

A 3D stacked IC is made by multiple dies (possibly) with heterogeneous process technologies. Therefore, die-to-die variation in 2D chips renders on-package variation (OPV) in a 3D chip. In spite of the different variation effect in 3D chips, generally, 3D die stacking can produce high yield due to the smaller individual die area and the averaging effect of variation on data path. However, 3D clock network can experience unintended huge clock skew due to the different clock propagation routes on multiple stacked dies. In this paper, we analyze the on-package variation effect on 3D clock networks and show the necessity of a post silicon management method such as body biasing technique for the OPV induced 3D clock skew control in 3D stacked IC designs. Then, we present a parametric yield improvement method to mitigate the OPV induced 3D clock skew.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2017

The three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D-IC) is a general trend for the miniaturized and high-performance electronic devices. The through-silicon-via (TSV) is the advanced interconnection method to achieve 3D integration, which uses vertical metal via through silicon substrate. However, the TSV based 3D-IC undergoes severe thermo-mechanical stress due to the CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) mismatch between via and silicon. The thermo-mechanical stress induces mechanical failure on silicon and silicon-via interface, which reduces the device reliability. In this paper, the thermo-mechanical reliability of TSV based 3D-IC is reviewed in terms of mechanical fracture, heat conduction, and material characteristic. Furthermore, the state of the art via-level and package-level design techniques are introduced to improve the reliability of TSV based 3D-IC.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2014

This article presents key research needs in three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) architectural floorplanning. Architectural floorplaning is done at a very early stage of 3D IC design process, where the goal is to quickly evaluate architectural designs described in register-transfer level (RTL) in terms of power, performance, and reliability. This evaluation is then fed back to architects for further improvement and/or modifications needed to meet the target constraints. We discuss the details of the following research needs in this article: block-level modeling, through-silicon-via (TSV) insertion and management, and chip/package co-evaluation. The goal of block-level modeling is to obtain physical, power, performance, and reliability information of architectural blocks. We then assemble the blocks into multiple tiers while connecting them using TSVs that are placed in between hard IPs and inside soft IPs. Once a full-stack 3D floorplanning is obtained, we evaluate it so that the feedback is provided back to architects.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.706-712
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• 2012

In previous work, novel maskless bumping and no-flow underfill technologies for three-dimensional (3D) integrated circuit (IC) integration were developed. The bumping material, solder bump maker (SBM) composed of resin and solder powder, is designed to form low-volume solder bumps on a through silicon via (TSV) chip for the 3D IC integration through the conventional reflow process. To obtain the optimized volume of solder bumps using the SBM, the effect of the volumetric mixing ratio of resin and solder powder is studied in this paper. A no-flow underfill material named "fluxing underfill" is proposed for a simplified stacking process for the 3D IC integration. It can remove the oxide layer on solder bumps like flux and play a role of an underfill after the stacking process. The bumping process and the stacking process using the SBM and the fluxing underfill, respectively, for the TSV chips are carefully designed so that two-tier stacked TSV chips are sucessfully stacked.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.31-35
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• 2013

TSOP(Thin Small Outline Package) is the IC package using lead frame, which is the type of low cost package for white electronics, auto mobile, desktop PC, and so on. Its performance is not excellent compared to BGA or flip-chip CSP, but it has been used mostly because of low price of TSOP package. However, it has been issued in TSOP package that thermal deflection of lead frame occurs frequently during molding process and Au wire between semiconductor die and pad is debonded. It has been required to solve this problem through substituting materials with low CTE and improving structure of lead frame. We focused on developing the lead frame structure having thermal stability, which was carried out by numerical analysis in this study. Thermal deflection of lead frame in TSOP package was simulated with positions of anti-deflection adhesives, which was ranging 198 um~366 um from semiconductor die. It was definitely understood that thermal deflection of TSOP package with anti-deflection adhesives was improved as 30.738 um in the case of inside(198 um), which was compared to that of the conventional TSOP package. This result is caused by that the anti-deflection adhesives is contributed to restrict thermal expansion of lead frame. Therefore, it is expected that the anti-deflection adhesives can be applied to lead frame packages and enhance their thermal deflection without any change of substitutive materials with low CTE.

• Proceedings of the International Microelectronics And Packaging Society Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.3-17
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• 2003

.Package Trend -> Memory : Lighter, Thinner, Smaller & High Density => SiP, 3D Stack -> MPU : High Pin Counts & Multi-functional => FCBGA .Interposer Trend -> Via - Unfilled Via => Filled Via - Staggered Via => Stacked Via -> Emergence of All-layer Build-up Processes -> Interposer Material Requirement => Low CTE, Low $D_{k}$, Low $D_{f}$, Halogen-free .New Technology Concept -> Embedded Passives, Imprint, MLTS, BBUL etc.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.183-184
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• 2007

A 40 Gb/s transimpedance amplifier IC was designed and fabricated with a InP/InGaAs HBTs technology. In this study, we interconnect 40Gbps trans impedance amplifier IC to a duroid substrate by a flip chip bonding instead of conventional wire bonding for interconnection. For flip chip bonding, we developed fine pitch bump with the $70{\mu}m$ diameter and $150{\mu}m$ pitch using WLP process. To study the effect of WLP, electrical performance was measured and analyzed in wafer and package module using WLP. The Small signal gains in wafer and package module were 7.24 dB and 6.93dB respectively. The difference of small signal gain in wafer and package module was 0.3dB. This small difference of gain is due to the short interconnection length by bump. The characteristics of return loss was under -10dB in both wafer and module. So, WLP process can be used for millimeter wave GaAs MMIC with the fine pitch pad and duroid substrate can be used in flip chip bonding process.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.91-95
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• 2017

Package-On-Package (PoP) technology is developing toward smaller form factors with high-speed data transfer capabilities to cope with high DDR4x memory capacity. The common application processor (AP) used for PoP devices in smartphones has the bottom package as logic and the top package as memory, which requires both thermally and electrically enhanced functions. Therefore, it is imperative that PoP designs consider both thermal and power distribution network (PDN) issues. Stacked packages have poorer thermal dissipation than single packages. Since the bottom package usually has higher power consumption than the top package, the bottom package impacts the thermal budget of the top package (memory). This paper investigates the thermal and electrical characteristics of PoP designs, particularly the bottom package. Findings include that via and dense via-cluster volume have an important role to lower thermal resistance to the motherboard, which can be an effective way to manage chip hot spots and reduce the thermal impact on the memory package. A Cu block and dense via-cluster layout with an optimal location are proposed to drain the heat from the chip hot spots to motherboard which will enhance thermal and electrical performance at the design stage. The analytical thermal results can be used for design guidelines in 3D packaging.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.216-231
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• 2001

Several methods for improving device yields and characteristics have been studied by IC manufacturers, as the options for programming components become diversified through the introduction of novel processes. Especially, the sequential repair steps on wafer level and package level are essentially required in DRAMs to improve the yield. Several repair methods for DRAMs are reviewed in this paper. They include the optical methods (laser-fuse, laser-antifuse) and the electrical methods (electrical-fuse, ONO-antifuse). Theses methods can also be categorized into the wafer-level(on wafer) and the package-level(post-package) repair methods. Although the wafer-level laser-fuse repair method is the most widely used up to now, the package-level antifuse repair method is becoming an essential auxiliary technique for its advantage in terms of cost and design efficiency. The advantages of the package-level antifuse method are discussed in this paper with the measured data of manufactured devices. With devices based on several processes, it was verified that the antifuse repair method can improve the net yield by more than 2%~3%. Finally, as an illustration of the usefulness of the package-level antifuse repair method, the repair method was applied to the replica delay circuit of DLL to get the decrease of clock skew from 55ps to 9ps.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.301-306
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• 2015

An ultra-compact and wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) in a quad flat non-leaded (QFN) package is presented. The LNA monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) is implemented in a $0.25{\mu}m$ GaN IC technology on a Silicon Carbide (SiC) substrate provided by Triquint. A source degeneration inductor and a gate inductor are used to obtain the noise and input matching simultaneously. The resistive feedback and inductor peaking techniques are employed to achieve a wideband characteristic. The LNA chip is mounted in the $3{\times}3-mm^2$ QFN package and measured. The supply voltages for the first and second stages are 14 V and 7 V, respectively, and the total current is 70 mA. The highest gain is 13.5 dB around the mid-band, and -3 dB frequencies are observed at 0.7 and 12 GHz. Input and output return losses ($S_{11}$ and $S_{22}$) of less than -10 dB measure from 1 to 12 GHz; there is an absolute bandwidth of 11 GHz and a fractional bandwidth of 169%. Across the bandwidth, the noise figures (NFs) are between 3 and 5 dB, while the output-referred third-order intercept points (OIP3s) are between 26 and 28 dBm. The overall chip size with all bonding pads is $1.1{\times}0.9mm^2$. To the best of our knowledge, this LNA shows the best figure-of-merit (FoM) compared with other published GaN LNAs with the same gate length.