Amkor Expands 300mm Wafer Bumping Capacity With SUSS MicroTec Lithography Solutions

Munich, Germany -- SUSS MicroTec announced that it has shipped and successfully installed a 300mm production lithography tool order at Amkor Technology, Inc., Singapore. The system installations were completed in Q3 of 2006. The deal includes a MA300Plus Full Field Exposure System and an ACS300Plus Coating Cluster, equipped with a special GYRSET cover technology that improves coating uniformity. Amkor has selected SUSS lithography systems to commence its' wafer bumping service in Singapore to support emerging applications on 300mm wafers. Equipment installations are already well underway.

"Recognizing both the increasing adoption of flip chip and wafer level packaging, and strong customer acceptance of our Unitive processes, Amkor is increasing wafer level processing capacity at multiple production sites in North America and Asia," explained Daniel Teng Amkor's Sr. Vice General Manager WLP Operations. "This order is a direct result of our positive experience with SUSS MicroTec lithography tools, and fits our expansion needs perfectly. We also plan to install additional SUSS lithography systems at our factories in Taiwan and North Carolina."

"Lithography for 300mm wafer-level packaging and wafer bumping is quite different from that for other applications. The packaging process is extremely cost-sensitive and requires nearly perfect yield with very thick photoresist and photopolymer layers. We are very pleased to be the lithography partner of choice to Amkor," comments Rolf Wolf, Managing Director of the SUSS MicroTec Lithography Division.

SUSS and Amkor have worked together very closely in recent years (e.g. SECAP) in order to drive back-end lithography to the next level. The latest generation SUSS MA300Plus exposure system with its sub-micron alignment capability in combination with modern resist and polymer material has eliminated the need for 1x stepper technology, thus reducing the per-wafer cost for Amkor.

The cost advantages, flexibility, and ease of use make SUSS production lithography systems suitable for different wafer level packaging technologies, including solder bumping, gold bumping, redistribution layers (for wafer level packages and chip stacking) or re-passivation. SUSS lithography equipment is also suited for production processes where either the resist thickness or wafer topography exceeds several microns and ranges up to several hundred microns.

SOURCE: SUSS MicroTec