A complete update on Wafer Level Packaging technologies with market status and forecast

Market Trends

Wafer Level Packaging is a confirmed high growth trend in the semiconductor packaging industry. Wafer Level Chip Scale Packaging (WLCSP), or the direct bonding on printed circuit boards (PCB’s) of bumped integrated circuits (IC’s) as one of the most visible expressions of WLP, is undoubtedly the fastest growing package type in the whole industry. Yole forecasts that it will exceed 17 billion units per year by 2012, at a compound annual growth rate of more than 20% over the next 5 years.

Primarily driven by footprint and thickness reduction of packaged integrated circuits in mobile phones, WLCSP is now used in a wide range of circuits for handsets: EMI/ESD interface protection; power supply (PMIC/PMU, DC/DC converters, LED drivers, MOSFET’s,…); connectivity (Bluetooth, WLAN); and other features (FM, GPS, TV on mobile, camera).

Wafer-Level Packaging of MEMS devices is also expected to grow fast, driven here too by the handset market and its fast increasing rate of integrated sensors (MEMS microphones, accelerometers, gyroscopes, pressure and magnetic sensors).

Maturing WLP technologies sustain high market growth

Early reliability issues have been largely improved with time, using new design rules and materials wafer level packaged parts now comfortably pass thermal cycling and drop qualification stress tests for consumer applications with extended die sizes up to 20mm². Concurrently the market matured as more WLP assembly service providers entered the market. More customers gained confidence in these technologies and tier 2 handset manufacturers also recently started to buy and mount WLCSP solutions on their boards. Besides offering unequaled benefits of small footprint and thickness geometries, WLCSP has become cost competitive with QFN, its main package platform competitor in handsets. This cost benefit now paves the way for the adoption of WLCSP by more consumer end user applications like netbooks, notebooks, gaming consoles, MP3 players and digital still cameras. Some WLCSP devices can also be found in automotive applications, which may well represent a future growth sector for WLP.

A likely capacity shortage of 300mm WLCSP in the coming months

It appears that during the recent economic downturn, the semiconductor packaging industry as a whole failed to anticipate this demand and did not plan sufficient WLCSP production capacity for the coming months. In particular, a shortage of 300mm wafer capacity for WLCSP is very likely to occur during the next quarters. However, significant investments are being made by a few industry leaders to develop future WLP technologies, like fan-out WLCSP or chip embedding, which will extend the reach of WLP to larger ICs and enable the combination of small size chip-scale packaging with low profile 3D System-in-Package.

In this WLP- 2009 report, you will find detailed technical and market status and forecasts on WLP technologies and applications. Market figures and growth rates are provided in units and wafers for each market segment over the 2008-2013 period. Numerous application examples are given, recent technical developments and options are detailed, and industry-wide technology roadmaps are presented.

Key features of the report

·         Detailed account of all the application fields of WLCSP  (examples are Integrated circuits, DC/DC converters, GPS, Bluetooth, audio amplifiers, …)

·         Market trends and figures in Munits and wafer size equivalent with breakdown by application. Market value evaluation in $M assembly service.

·         Wafer price ranges of WLCSP contract assembly by wafer size

·         Complete technologies and material tool-box analysis, covering WLCSP, fan-out WLCSP and chip embedding platforms, as well as WLP of MEMS devices.

§      - Key drivers, Benefits and challenges of each of these technologies

§      - Supply chain analysis: main contract assemblers (OSAT) for WLCSP.

Companies cited in the report:

Amkor, Analog Devices, Apple, Asahi Glass Chemicals , ASE, Analog Devices, Air Products, Austriamicrosystems, Arch Chemical, AT&S, Avago Technologies, AVX, Brewer Sciences, Bosch, Broadcom, California Micro Devices, Casio Computer, China WLCSP, Clover Electronics, CSR, Dalsa Semiconductor, DNP, DOW Chemical, Dupont, Enthone, Epcos, EPWorks, EVGroup, Fairchild Semiconductors, FlipChip International, Fraunhofer-IZM,Freescale, Fujikura, Fujifilm, i2a, IC Interconnect / JCAP, Imbera Electronics, Ibiden, IBM, IME,IMEC, IMT, Infineon, International Rectifier, JSR Micro, Maxim, MaxLinear, Mentor Graphics, MicroChem, Micron, National Semiconductor, Nanya, NEC Toppan Circuit, Nokia, NXP, OKI Electric, Omnivision, OptoPAC, Pac Tech, Replisaurus Technologies, RFMD, Rohm & Hass, Samsung, Sanyo, Schott, Sensonor, Silex, SiTime, Sharp, Shin-Etsu, Shinko, Skyworks, StatsChipPac, STMicroelectronics, STEricsson, SPIL, Sumitomo, SUSS MicroTec, Telephus, Tessera, Texas Instruments, TOK, Toshiba, Triquint, Tronic’s Microsystems, Touch Microsystems Technology, TSMC, Ultratech, VTI, Wolfson Microelectronics, Xintec