October 24, 2024 More powerful, more energy-efficient, more complex – manufacturers of modern microchips are constantly facing new challenges, also with regard to the electrical connections required there. Fraunhofer IPMS and BASF have been working together on this problem for ten years and, by pooling their infrastructure and expertise, have made it possible to evaluate chemicals, process and product tests for chip integration in line with industry requirements.
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The Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS and the chemical company BASF can proudly look back on ten successful years of collaboration. Together, they are working on innovative and customized solutions in the field of semiconductor production and chip integration as part of their “BASF Plating Lab”. Within pilot tests at the Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT) of Fraunhofer IPMS, strategies are developed and implemented to make materials and technologies in semiconductor integration more efficient and cost-effective. “With our cooperation, we are addressing the growing challenges of the market and enabling new technologies in the field of interconnect and packaging,” explains Dr. Lothar Laupichler, Senior Vice President, Electronic Materials at BASF.
Many electro-chemical processes take place during the production and integration of a microchip. Various layers of metal or metal alloys must be applied to the wafer in order to connect the individual circuits and create the network of conductor paths within a chip. For different steps in the overall integration and different subsequent applications, the chemicals and work steps must be adapted to the individual customer processes. As part of the collaboration with BASF, new chemicals for electroplating deposition processes have been evaluated in recent years.
At the same time, corresponding product tests and demonstration trials were carried out for customers at wafer level. BASF installed a state-of-the-art process plant in the Fraunhofer IPMS clean room, which is operated there by the experienced scientists. The cooperation partners are thus using the same plant technology that is also used in industry. This enables customers to significantly reduce their qualification costs. As a result, development time and costs can be saved and more efficient processes can be established. The innovative solutions can therefore be developed and evaluated directly under production conditions.
In the past ten years, the project partners have recorded over 12,000 process launches. “The chemical packages and products developed can be used directly in our customers’ industrial processes,” says Dr. Benjamin Lilienthal-Uhlig, Head of the Next Generation Computing business unit at Fraunhofer IPMS. For example, they are used to manufacture wiring structures in miniaturized circuits for dual damascene technologies. The products are also important in the manufacture of interposers, chiplets and 3D packages for rewiring structures (pillar, RDL, TSV) or form the metal layers in wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding.
In June 2014, the research institute and the chemical company established the collaboration as part of the screening fab opened at the CNT. Fraunhofer IPMS is providing BASF with its 300 mm cleanroom infrastructure for this purpose. Customers and partners also benefit from the Silicon Saxony network. It enables the involvement of other local facilities, such as the Dresden branch of the Fraunhofer Institute IZM-ASSID, or direct process developments specifically for the global industrial partners of Fraunhofer IPMS (Bosch, Infineon, GlobalFoundries). The newly founded research center CEASAX (“Center for Advanced CMOS and Heterointegration Saxony”) will make it possible to work even more closely on application-oriented solutions in the future, especially with regard to the heterointegration of microsystems.
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Photo: Fraunhofer IPMS
