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More TSV commercial capacity on line.....
December 5, 2007
As these blogs have mentioned before, the first signs of the commercialization of 3D IC technology will be face to face stacking of two thinned chips (without TSV ) – known as Chip-on-chip, which has already been used commercially in the Sony Playstation and the introduction of TSV technology for miniaturization of CIS (CMOS Image Sensor) for camera modules and other portable products.
In late January of this year Oki Electric and ZyCube agreed to combine their technologies to offer the ZyCSP™ for CIS (CMOS Image Sensor) applications . promising that the technology would reduce the height of image sensors to less than 0.6 mm. It was rumored that Oki and ZyCube jointly invested ¥5 billion to modify an Oki WLP line to manufacture the ZyCSP. The ZyCSP process flow (as described by ZyCube) is shown below.
Well a few weeks ago, on the heels of the Toshiba announcement ( see Perspectives from the Leading Edge blog “Imaging chips with TSV announced for commercialization” - 10/27 ) Oki Electric announced it had established a volume production line for the Through Silicon Vias ( TSV )based ZyCSP, at its production site in Tokyo and had in fact started production in October. OKI claims that these modules now offer sensor and camera module manufacturers the ability to fabricate camera modules that are half the size of conventional modules. Capacity is reported to be ramping to 10,000 wafers per month by March 2009 and a 20,000 wafers per month by March 2010.
Sharp, Fujikura and Sanyo in Japan have all described similar technology, all of which appears to stem from the ASET pre-competitive consortium work done in the 2001 – 2004 timeframe. Outside Japan, ST Micro and Micron have described similar backside TSV technology and could also be expected to put capacity in place. Of course, the first companies in this miniature camera module space were Shellcase (licensed to Xintec and TSMC and later bought by Tessera) and Schott who recently sold their facility in Singapore to STATS ChipPAC.
These technologies are not yet true 3D IC technology since there is no chip stacking in these first generation products, but they are a real first step in getting TSV accepted as “commodity” capable technology. ….can the rest be far behind ???
Posted by Philip Garrou on December 5, 2007 | Comments (0)
