David Volk | SUSS MicroTec Solutions: Are you spinning 90% of your expensive photoresist or polyimide down the drain? There's a digital alternative.
00:05:30 - 00:07:01
Other snippets from this talk
Summary of the clip:
Are you spinning 90% of your expensive photoresist or polyimide down the drain? There's a digital alternative.
Conventional spin coating is an inherently wasteful process, especially for expensive materials like advanced photoresists, polyimides, or BCB. The process involves dispensing an excess of material onto the center of a wafer and spinning it at high speed, with the vast majority—often over 90%—being flung off the edge and discarded. This not only drives up costs but also creates significant chemical waste.
"Digital coating" via inkjet printing offers a direct, material-saving alternative. By depositing material only where it is needed, inkjet completely eliminates the waste associated with spin-off and also obviates the need for a separate edge bead removal (EBR) step. This additive approach can reduce material consumption by up to 90%, providing a massive cost-of-ownership and environmental benefit, particularly for high-value formulations.
The value proposition is especially strong for applications requiring thick coating layers over topography, where spin coating is particularly inefficient. Inkjet can locally deposit thick films of materials like photo-sensitive polyimides or BCB precisely where needed for redistribution layers (RDLs) or passivation. This process is highly scalable, with SUSS MicroTec developing fully automated tools for both 200/300mm wafers and the large glass core substrates used in next-generation panel-level packaging.
In this short video, you can learn:
* The inherent material waste (up to 90%) in conventional spin coating processes.
* How inkjet's additive "digital coating" approach eliminates waste and the need for edge bead removal.
* The significant cost and environmental benefits, especially for expensive materials like polyimides and BCB.
📋 **Clip Abstract** Digital coating with inkjet printing presents a compelling alternative to wasteful spin coating, capable of saving up to 90% of expensive materials like photoresists and polyimides. This additive, on-demand deposition method reduces costs, minimizes chemical waste, and is scalable from wafers to large panels for advanced packaging.
🔗 Link in comments 👇
#InkjetPrinting, #DigitalCoating, #MaterialEfficiency, #AdvancedPackaging, #PrintedElectronics, #AdditiveElectronics
This is a highlight of the presentation:
Inkjet Printing for Semiconductor Manufacturing: A Scalable and Material Saving Solution
More Highlights from the same talk.
00:02:30 - 00:04:12
How can a single deposition tool print multiple materials, vary layer thickness on the fly, and perfectly coat complex 3D topographies?
How can a single deposition tool print multiple materials, vary layer thickness on the fly, and perfectly coat complex 3D topographies?
Inkjet printing is a digital, contactless technology, fundamentally different from analog methods like spin coating. This digital nature allows for selective deposition, meaning material is only placed where it's needed based on a digital image file. This eliminates the need for subsequent patterning steps like photolithography for certain feature sizes and saves a significant amount of material.
The contactless nature of inkjet printing is a key enabler for advanced semiconductor packaging and MEMS. Unlike spin coating, which struggles with non-planar surfaces, inkjet heads can operate at a standoff distance, allowing them to deposit uniform layers over pre-existing topographies and 3D structures. This capability is crucial for applications requiring conformal coatings or filling trenches without voids.
Inkjet technology offers unprecedented flexibility in material deposition. It's possible to vary the layer thickness across a single substrate within the same print job by simply adjusting the number of droplets deposited in specific areas. Furthermore, systems can be equipped with multiple printheads, each containing a different material, enabling the simultaneous deposition of up to four different inks for complex devices like multi-element sensors, all in a single pass.
In this short video, you can learn:
* The key differences between digital inkjet and analog spin coating.
* How contactless printing enables uniform coating over complex 3D topographies.
* The ability to vary layer thickness and print multiple materials simultaneously.
📋 **Clip Abstract** Inkjet printing unlocks new manufacturing possibilities beyond simple coating by leveraging its digital, contactless, and multi-material capabilities. This enables selective patterning, conformal coating over 3D structures, and the creation of complex devices with variable thickness and multiple materials in a single step.
🔗 Link in comments 👇
#DigitalDeposition, #3DConformalCoating, #MultiMaterialDeposition, #VariableLayerThickness, #PrintedElectronics, #AdvancedPackaging
00:04:12 - 00:05:30
Your chiplet placement is never perfect. What if your deposition tool could see the errors and print a perfect pattern for every single die?
Your chiplet placement is never perfect. What if your deposition tool could see the errors and print a perfect pattern for every single die?
In advanced packaging, particularly with chiplet-based designs, individual dies are placed onto a carrier substrate. However, the pick-and-place process is not perfect, resulting in minor but critical variations in the X, Y, and rotational position of each chip. Traditional lithography, which uses a single mask for the entire wafer or panel, cannot compensate for these individual die shifts, leading to yield loss.
SUSS MicroTec's inkjet platform integrates a high-precision in-situ metrology system to overcome this challenge. Before printing, the system scans the carrier substrate and measures the exact position and orientation of every individual chip. This data is then used to generate a unique, personalized print file in real-time for the entire substrate.
The personalized print file dynamically adjusts the deposition pattern for each chip, effectively compensating for any measured X, Y, or rotational offsets. The printer then executes this custom job, depositing features with high accuracy relative to each individual die's true position. This "personalization" capability is a game-changer for ensuring high-yield, high-reliability interconnects in heterogeneous integration and fan-out wafer-level packaging.
In this short video, you can learn:
* The challenge of die shift and rotation in advanced chiplet packaging.
* How in-situ metrology can measure the precise location of each individual chip.
* The concept of creating personalized, on-the-fly print data to compensate for placement errors.
📋 **Clip Abstract** Inkjet printing enables "personalization" for advanced packaging by compensating for individual chip placement errors. An integrated metrology system measures the exact position of each die, allowing the printer to dynamically adjust the deposition pattern for perfect alignment and high-yield interconnects.
🔗 Link in comments 👇
#InkjetPrinting, #InSituMetrology, #DieShiftCompensation, #AdvancedPackaging, #HeterogeneousIntegration, #FanOutWLP