The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Seog-Hyeon Ryu, hereinafter referred to as KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has announced the development of a groundbreaking technology that significantly enhances semiconductor packaging productivity while reducing manufacturing costs. The research was led by Distinguished Research Fellow Dr. Jun-Yeob Song and Dr. Jae Hak Lee from KIMM’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Research Center, in collaboration with Hanwha Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., Cressem Co., Ltd., MTI Co., Ltd., and NEPES Co., Ltd.
This innovative technology utilizes a 600mm x 600mm large rectangular panel instead of the conventional 300mm wafer, achieving both high precision and productivity. The team developed FO-PLP* bonding and inspection equipment, along with core process and material technologies. These advancements enable a productivity increase of 6.5 times compared to existing wafer-based methods, while significantly reducing manufacturing costs.
* FO-PLP (Fan-Out Panel Level Packaging): A semiconductor packaging technology that arranges chips on a large-area panel. Unlike FO-WLP (Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging), which operates at the wafer level, FO-PLP leverages larger panels to achieve higher productivity, albeit with greater technical complexity.
The research team achieved exceptional precision of ±5μm in chip alignment, representing a more than 30% improvement over existing technologies. High-speed bonding equipment capable of processing over 10,000 chips per hour (developed by Hanwha Precision Machinery Co., Ltd.), advanced high-heat-resistant materials with low residue (developed by MTI Co., Ltd.), and high-speed inspection equipment with 1-2μm resolution (developed by Cressem Co., Ltd.) were integral to the project.
This FO-PLP technology addresses challenges such as chip misalignment (Die Shift) caused by adhesive thickness variation, re-alignment errors during bonding, and thermal expansion mismatches during molding. To mitigate these issues, the research team implemented integrated AI-based inspection and compensation technology, significantly enhancing yield and productivity.
On November 26, KIMM held a performance report meeting at Ruby Hall, El Tower in Seoul. During the event, KIMM signed an MOU with the Korea Semiconductor Research Association, Hanwha Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., Cressem Co., Ltd., and MTI Co., Ltd. to promote the commercialization of next-generation FO-PLP technology.
Distinguished Research Fellow Dr. Jun-Yeob Song remarked, “The FO-PLP market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 30% over the next five years. We anticipate that FO-PLP technology will lead the semiconductor packaging market, which is projected to reach $50 billion by 2030.”
This research was supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy under the “Development of High-Precision FO-PLP Bonding System with Die Shift Error Compensation” project.
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The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.
