Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc.

Fujitsu Microelectronics America Introduces Industry's First Eight-Stacked Multi-Chip Package for Mobile, Digital A/V Equipment

IC cards, compact hard drives now support three-stacked chips in one package

San Jose, CA, March 25, 2002 — Fujitsu Microelectronics America (FMA) today introduced in North America the industry's highest density multi-chip package, an MCP that can support as many as eight chips. Designed for mobile phones, digital audio/video equipment and IC cards, the new eight-chip MCP can meet demands for smaller, thinner, more densely integrated, high-capacity devices.

"This packaging breakthrough has been made possible by Fujitsu's advances in thin-chip processing and MCP technology," said Dennis Stephenson, director of FMA's Advanced Packaging Services. "Eight chips can now be mounted onto a single MCP. In addition, IC cards and compact hard disk drives can move beyond their previous limits to support three-chip combinations in land-grid array and other advanced packages."

The new MCP was made possible by advances in thin chip processing and MCP technology pioneered by Fujitsu, including improvements in ultra-thin wafer processing, which were announced in December 2001. Another breakthrough - the creation of chips that are less than 0.1 mm in thickness - comes from a slimming process that enables production of wafers as thin as 0.025 mm. These new wafers are constructed without the use of chemicals, which leads to shorter manufacturing cycles and lower equipment costs, along with less environmental impact.

Typically, the mounted surface area on any circuit board provides space for packages as thick as 1.2 mm to 1.6 mm, meaning a three-stacked package requires an individual chip thickness no greater than 0.15 mm per device, and five or more allows thickness of just 0.08 mm.

The new packaging technology is an ideal mounting technique for ultra-high density packages. Until now, there have been limits in the size of chips that can be mounted on circuit boards. Also, there have been complications in configuring off-board electrical connections when layering chips of identical sizes, since electrical connectors cannot be stacked to reach the upper layers. Using the advanced packaging technique pioneered by Fujitsu, chips are attached to one or both sides of the circuit board while using lead-free solder balls to bond packages to the board, making it possible to stack larger numbers of different-sized chips.

Note to editors:
Down load a cross section of eight-stacked MCP from the following link:
http://pr.fujitsu.com/en/news/2002/03/13a.gif

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About Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc.

Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc. (FMA) designs and markets a broad range of semiconductors and electronics products. For more information, call 1-800-866-8608 or visit the web site at http://www.fma.fujitsu.com/apt/Main01.asp

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