FMC IC Substrates: Copper Defects, ABF Material, and Advancements in Semiconductor Packaging

The FMC IC substrates are also relevant in device packaging in that they provide a means of electrical interconnection right from the chip level and up to the PCB. With the electronics industry improving, there will always be a need to enhance the substrate fabrication in the production process.

The change from ‘lead frame’ designs to ICs mounted on multilayer circuit substrates with complex wiring patterns produced the demand for far more advanced IC substrates, which thereby called for new insulating materials.

This need results in the problem of fabrication defects in IC substrate processing, especially when new manufacturing plants are set up in the corresponding region. This article will give information on the main copper defects that occurs during the process of manufacturing IC substrate together with the methods that can be applied in the process.

Overview of IC substrates

An IC substrate is one of the main substrates within the total chip package that protects and hold the chips and allows the communication between the chips and the PCB on the bottom. This structure has several layers of laminates and can frequently contain a stabilizing core located in the middle. An IC substrate contains more miniaturized drill holes and conductor pathways than a PCB, the ultimate stage for module and package placement.

Basic materials that constitute an IC substrate includes polymer laminate types such as bismaleimide-triazine, prepreg consisting of resin reinforced with fiberglass, Ajinomoto Build-Up Film (ABF) or molded interconnect substrate.

Ongoing advancement in circuit integration has made it possible to design the ICs. For instance, a CPU is made of smaller electronic circuits on the nanoscale levels. This circuitry must be coupled to millimeter-scale electronics in electronics equipment and systems. One of the ways that could facilitate this is using a CPU bed which is several layers of microcircuits located and termed as a build-up substrate.

ABF allows the formation of micrometer-scale circuits by using the surface of the material which lends itself to laser processing and direct copper plating. In FMC IC substrates, ABF is applied as an insulating film over the protection of the high-end semiconductors installed inside packages. It possesses low surface roughness and potential for using ultrathin layers of copper with thickness ranging from 1 µm. Because these thin copper layers can meet the subsequent construction of circuits’ requirements.

Today, ABF becomes an essential material to fabricate the circuitry that channels electron from the nanoscale IC terminal to the terminal on printed millimeter-large substrates.

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