April 26, 2012 -- After pioneering low-cost wafer- and panel-based glass and silicon interposers in Phase 1 of its SiGI consortium, Georgia Tech Packaging Research Center (GT-PRC) is beginning Phase 2 in June.

The industry consortium involves about ~30 semiconductor, package, and related supply-chain companies from the US, Europe, and Asia. They developed glass and silicon interposers with 10x higher I/Os than conventional organic packages, at 2-10x lower cost per mm² than back end of line (BEOL) silicon interposers.

SiGI Phase 1 has demonstrated technologies to:

• handle ultra-thin glass and silicon wafers and panels,
• form small through-package vias (TPV) at fine pitches with high throughput and high reliability,
• and make 5µm double-sided re-distributed layers (RDL) on both sides of ultra-thin glass and silicon panels with 10x lower signal loss than oxide-lined TSV interposers.

Chip-to-interposer cu-bump interconnection has been demonstrated at 50µm I/O pitch.

The 2-year Phase 2 of this program, launching in June 2012, will build upon and expand on Phase 1, focusing on:

• thinner glass (30-100µm) and its handling
• multi-level RDL with 3µm lines and spaces and 5µm vias
• Cu-to-Cu chip-to-interposer interconnections at 15-50µm pitch and their reliability
• Low standoff and fine pitch gap fill
• Reliable SMT interconnection to PWB with large package sizes
• Enhanced thermal dissipation of glass interposers to that of Si interposers
• High performance and thinfilm passives as IPDs or thin planar layers
• Electrical, thermal, mechanical and thermo-mechanical modeling and characterization
• Selective module demonstrators in Power, Analog, Digital, RF, mm-wave, MEMS and LED Packaging applications

Georgia Tech PRC plans to partner with R&D and manufacturing supply chain companies to bring about advances in materials, processes, tools modeling and designs. Interested companies can contact Dr. Venky Sundaram at venky.sundaram@prc.gatech.edu, 404 894-9394 or Prof. Rao Tummala at rao.tummala@prc.gatech.edu, 404 894-9097. GT-PRC will be holding an Open House for companies interested in joining the SiGI Phase 2 Consortium, May 25, 2012, 8:00am-noon, Georgia Institute of Technology. Learn more about Georgia Tech’s 3D Systems Packaging Research Center at www.prc.gatech.edu.

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