CIL installs its 3rd DATACON 2200EVO Auto Die Bonder in its BP2 Semiconductor packaging facility
As part of its continued investment in the semiconductor packaging of Si sensors, GaN RF MMIC QFN's, SiC and GaN power devices, CIL now installed a 3rd DATACON 2200EVO Auto die bonder. This third EVO for CIL is the most highly configured EVO in the UK. Its installation brings the total number of Auto Die bonders at this facility to five and this coupled with its associated wafer dicing, wire bonders, encapsulation, sintering, plastic overmold and test has created production capacity for its growing customer demand in multiple market sectors.
This Datacon2200EVO Die bonder system is part of an overall series of investments that are necessary for production capability and capacity based in the UK for sovereign manufacture. It is to support CIL existing expanding micro-electronics demand for predominantly Silicon (Si) based sensors as well as placing power devices based upon compound semiconductor materials such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) and GaN based MMIC RF devices. Up until June 2023, CIL was limited to any increase due to the cleanroom constraints of its existing CIL House micro-electronics facility. With the opening of its world class BP2 facility in June 2023, this restriction has been removed, so its scale up plans can now go ahead. This was further enhanced by the addition of adding wafer dicing / saw to this facility as CIL is now not restricted to only placing die from waffle / GEL packs. CIL’s two older Auto die bonders predominantly placed die from waffle or GEL packs in prototype, small and medium volume quantities. All three of the DATACON 2200EVO die bonders still retain this ability, but more importantly are placing directly from sawn wafers and can accommodate multiple wafer loads and wafer map integration. This coupled with high accuracy of typically <10um and multiple built in optical vision checking and verification systems results in more consistent product and repeatability. So with these 5 die bonders CIL now caters for proto’s through to full production volumes.
As well as placing from sawn wafer, waffle / GEL pack using die attach methodologies such as conductive and non-conductive epoxies, CIL will also use these machines for Eutectic solders and silver sinter. In addition to this, these three DATACON 2200EVO’s all have the ability to place flip chip, Thru Silicon Via (TSV) and Wafer Level Chip Scale Packages (WLCSP).
As well as its existing customers requesting increased demand, CIL has also been running a number of UK funded low carbon projects using this semiconductor packaging facility, these include
- APC15@FutureBEV with BMW developing and manufacturing SiC based power modules and associated drive PCBA for the future BEV platforms
- APC20 EleVAIT with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) developing and manufacturing SiC based power modules and associated drive PCBA for the future BEV platforms
- DSIT OranGaN with multiple project partners developing a Sovereign UK design and manufacturing capability for GaN based RF MMIC devices mainly used in 5G communications system and others. CIL’s involvement in the project is die placement, wire bonding and full plastic overmold of QFN style SMT packages. These packages once created can then be assembled onto PCBA using any one of the eight SMT lines CIL currently now has installed.
- DER Power Electronics Modules by Rapid Moulding: PE2M - Developing and manufacturing custom SiC based discrete devices.
This Datacon2200EVO Die bonder system is part of an overall series of investments that are necessary for production capability in the UK for future Medical / Scientific / Automotive / Aerospace / Power generation assemblies. CIL has set itself up to support its customers through product concept, development, prototyping and then Small, Medium and volume production. Even though this facility can accommodate volume production, nearly all projects start with 5 off’s and 10 off’s and so CIL’s facility does this as well and we now have a team of 35 Semiconductor packaging engineers working with customers and on funded projects and this is planned to increase.
