Jan 12 2010
Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: RTEC), a worldwide leader in process characterization solutions for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, announced today that it has received multiple orders for its NSX® and WaferScanner™ Inspection Systems from STATS ChipPAC Ltd.
The systems will be used for high-throughput inspection during each step of the eWLB (embedded wafer-level ball grid array) process. Shipments commenced in 4Q09 and will continue through 1Q10.
The eWLB manufacturing process, often referred to as fan-out wafer level packaging, is an emerging packaging technology driven primarily by the wireless market. The IC packages are thinner and smaller with higher I/O, which tend to be lower in cost, higher performance, and more power efficient than many of the existing packaging solutions.
“STATS ChipPAC has been ramping production capacity in Singapore to support the strong demand we are seeing for eWLB. We have established an efficient, cost effective manufacturing process to ensure eWLB is competitive with other packaging solutions available in the market. The Rudolph inspection systems are essential to our manufacturing process,” said Harry Kam, eWLB director, STATS ChipPAC.
“The eWLB process is one of the hottest topics in advanced packaging today, and we are just starting to see the first commercial adoption of this new packaging technology for mobile phone applications,” said Rajiv Roy, Rudolph’s vice president of business development and director of back-end marketing. “Rudolph inspection systems are used during many steps in the redistribution and back-end processes,” he said.
“The reconstitution step coupled with back-grinding introduces special handling challenges because the wafers can warp,” Roy stated. “Rudolph offers thin wafer handling options for both the flagship NSX 2D wafer inspection system and the industry-standard WS3840 3D bump inspection system. These handling options are designed to accommodate production level throughputs, hence minimizing the cost of ownership for these tools.”
Rudolph offers a complete line of inspection and metrology systems for semiconductor manufacturing applications. The NSX 115 automated inspection tool is optimized specifically for the back-end manufacturing environment, and offers high throughput and extensive flexibility in the detection and analysis of macro defects created during wafer manufacturing, probing, bumping, dicing, or by general handling. The WaferScanner 3840 uses proprietary laser triangulation technology to provide fast and accurate 3D measurements of bump height and coplanarity. The open architecture and scalable system provided by Rudolph’s Discover® software on the NSX System can encompass all inspection tools on the fab floor. It is designed to efficiently analyze the tremendous volume of data generated by high-speed inspection tools to identify significant events, such as process excursions, and provide process engineers with the information required to optimize the manufacturing processes.
Source: http://www.rudolphtech.com/