Advanced Packaging - From the Editor

It seemed like a hometown event when I traveled to Buffalo Grove, Ill., to attend the grand opening of the Panasonic Factory Solutions Company of America's (PFSA) Advanced Packaging Lab. The company hosted a grand opening ceremony for their lab on June 7, 2007. It was familiar territory for me — where SMT and Advanced Packaging magazines first began. In nearby Libertyville, where I raised my family, my new grandchild was expected at any moment. The ribbon-cutting event combined a PFSA meeting and lab tour with the annual joint meeting of IMAPS Chicago/Milwaukee and the SMTA Great Lakes Chapter. It felt like a coming home party with a grand celebration, and perhaps a new addition to the family.

Why is this lab located in the U.S.? "The U.S. has always been positioned as the most advanced global pioneer of research labs, standards committees, and major integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) for semiconductors and devices," said PFSC president Katsutoshi Kanzaki. Twelve of the top 20 semiconductor companies are headquartered in the U.S. "Panasonic Factory Solutions is striving to expand our business globally by establishing our labs in four locations worldwide: Japan, Germany, Singapore, and here in Chicago."

Gene Dunn, PFSA engineering manager, microelectronics, heads the lab, where he walked visitors around the new facilities. The new lab offers process development solutions, working with customers in a true-to-life environment. It handles material qualifications for substrate and surface-finish choices. It also offers a controlled environment for post-assembly analysis in a class-10,000 cleanroom.

The environment had some of the latest equipment for manufacture and testing of advanced packages: a JOEL SEM, a Dage 7600 X-ray, an Asymtek S820 underfill dispenser, a Sonoscan D9000 C-SAM, a PSX303 plasma cleaner, an FCX501 Au/Au ultrasonic bonder, a DMX60 multi-die bonder, an IPAC-CS modular chip shooter, and a Yamato curing oven. For SMT assembly equipment, PFSA offered an SPPG3 screen printer, a DT401 flexible mounter, a CM402 high-speed mounter, a Heller 1800 9-zone oven, an IP121 PCT inspection machine, and selective laser soldering equipment.

The variety of 3D packaging styles (SiP, PoP, stacked chips, MEMS, and others) requires integration of new materials and many reliability tests. This type of lab will be needed by many packaging companies in the future as time-to-market continues to be critical. This lab should prove helpful for the local economy, as well as for the growth of PFSC.

Oh, did I mention that my new granddaughter in the Chicago area arrived as well? I wonder what electronics will be like when Audrey Gail Sloan begins using them.

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