For AI, The Silicon -Based Plate Has Become "Square"

Recently, Mitsubishi Materials announced the development of the world's rectangular silicon -based plate, which is planned to Small -scale production began in 2025.According to Mitsubishi Materials, the company's size is 600mm x 600mm.Other sizes include 300mm x 300mm and 510mm x 515mm, which is slightly larger than 0.8mm.

In fact, not only Mitsubishi Materials, in June this year, some reports that the accumulation of Taiwan is also developing rectangular substrates.TSMC's rectangular substrate size is also the same510mm x 515mm (the same size as Mitsubishi material).For a long time, the familiar silicon -based plates are round. Why does the industry have a trend of rectangular substrates?In general, rectangular substrates can save costs.

It is understood that the available area of the rectangular substrate is more than three times that of round wafers.At the same time, another advantage of using the rectangular substrate is that the remaining area of the edge will be less, which can greatly improve the utilization rate of the material.So, does this mean that the circular substrates in our impression in the past will be replaced?It is necessary to know that from circular to rectangle, it is a considerable update project for the entire wafer manufacturing industry.

 01, rectangular substrate disruptive wafer manufacturing

Why isn'ts the wafer not crystal?The answer is hidden in multiple links of chip manufacturing.

From the perspective of the front road, the shape of the wafer has some advantages, but the chip products themselves are rectangular.After cutting, a lot of materials will be wasted after cutting.Discuss here why the chip is rectangular.From the perspective of cutting, on the silicon base board All features on IC basically follow the crystal structure of the silicon, that is, cube.Therefore, square chips can be cut efficiently and cleanly because any jitter may cause crack expansion along the cutting line.

If the chip is triangular, then the wafer needs to be cut into 3 different angles (not 2).This process means that a large number of changes are required, and a large number of work is required to bond the chip to the framework of IC packaging.Each other triangular chip must rotate 180 degrees, or each other framework needs to rotate 180 degrees.Such changes will greatly increase the cost and manufacturing time.Therefore, the shape of the chip will basically not change.

So why are most of the substrates round?From the source of manufacturing, this is closely related to the craftsmanship manufactured by Silicon crystal.In 1916, Polish scientist Jan Czochralski (Yang Chaotrasky) invented the crystal growth method in invention when studying the crystallization rate of metal. This method is also called a straight method.

Through this method, semiconductors (such as silicon, tadpoles, and arsenidium arsenidium), metal (such as tadpoles, platinum, silver, gold, etc.), salt, and synthetic gemstone single crystal materials.This process needs to be heated to the melting state in the molten state.Subsequently, by accurate control, the quantitative atoms such as boron atoms and phosphorus atoms are quantitatively incorporated into the melting silicon to transform silicon toP -type or N silicon, this doping step changes the electrical characteristics of silicon.

After that, it is calledThe starting crystal of the crystal or seed crystal is placed at an accurate and determined stick end, and the end is then immersed in the melt.Subsequently, this stick is lifted up slowly and controlled. At the same time, the rotation can promote the growth of single crystal silicon at the end of the stick.In this process, the precision regulation of the temperature gradient, lifting rate, and rotation rate of the stick is critical. They jointly determine whether a large -sized cylindrical single -crystal silicon ingot can be formed at the end.The entire operation is usually performed in an inert gas (such as a gas) to prevent external impurities from interference. In the process, the rotating action determines that the silicon crystal grows into a cylindrical silicon rod.In the process of chip production, many craftsmanship uses rotating actions.

In the process of lithography, the lithography adhesive tape is also performed in the process of rotating at a high -speed wafer.With the help of high -speed rotation, the photorettic glue spreads on the surface of the wafer, and the excess photoresis can be thrown out of the wafer surface.Treatment of any shape of any shape except circular is a huge challenge.Dry etching never obtains the uniformity of the corner within the specification range.The chamber cannot work properly.Standard In terms of RIE technology, it is necessary to create a craft room with a process area of about 800 mm to make it work.This is impossible in the short term.

The current high -end machines of ASML cannot handle square wafers, let alone a square wafer with a diameter of more than 200 mm in the standard 12 -inch wafer.In terms of technology, it is not impossible to make squares.After all, the substrate of solar photovoltaic is rectangular.But you need to update each step and the production line to adapt to this different shape.Is it really worth the change in any process to improve the output?Change the process itself is a loss.A small amount of waste cut off from circular edges is not an important factor in the cost of most chips.

There are these factorsWalls have become the result. Why did Jingfang become a new breakthrough in the market in 2024?The answer is still cost.

 02 The rectangular substrate will be used for advanced packaging

Whether it is TSMC or the rectangular substrate product of Mitsubishi materials, their ultimate use points to advanced packaging.The next -generation semiconductor packaging technology is towards a larger one 100 mm x 100 mm square format development.The traditional wafer -grade packaging (WLP) uses 12 -inch silicon wafer as the vector substrate for semiconductor chips. The circular substrate will involve waste of the edge material after cutting.In order to adapt to a larger rectangular carrier substrate, larger packaging is required on the carrier substrate.However, the production of large substrates with single crystal silicon is technically challenging.Therefore, it has developed panel -level packaging (PLP) and uses large glass plates as a carrier substrate.

AimalizePreviously, the rigidity and thermal guidance rate of glass materials were low, and the layer was re -distributed (RDL) During the formation of formation, it will lead to warp.Mitsubishi materials indicate that the newly developed large -scale rectangular silicon -based plates can solve these problems.The new substrate has higher rigidity and thermal conductivity, which can reduce the warning in the process of RDL formation.The newly developed rectangular substrate can be used as a carrier substrate in the semiconductor manufacturing process, as well as semiconductorThe intermediary layer material in the package.As far as the rectangular substrate is concerned, TSMC is also working with equipment and raw material suppliers to develop new chip packaging technology, but it takes several years to promote commercial mass production.

In addition to the problem of warming materials, TSMC has encountered some technical challenges in the packaging of cutting -edge chips on the new shape substrate, such as in coating.In the face of so many technical challenges, why do the giants have to study?This and The rapid development of the AI market has been closely related to the FOPLP market.Samsung Electronics acquired the fan -type packaging business from Samsung Electric in 2019 and commercialized it.Samsung Electronics said that the size of AI semiconductor chips (rectangular components with circuits) is usually 600mm x 600mm or 800mm x 800mm. Therefore, Samsung is currently actively developing and cooperating with customers.

Later, insiders revealed that TSMC was vigorously developing and introducing rectanglesPCB packaging to replace traditional circular wafers technology.As mentioned earlier, the use of rectangular wafers to replace traditional circular wafers can reduce the waste of wafers, thereby producing more semiconductor packaging.Samsung Electronics still only uses this technology in certain technologies, TSMCElectricity may catch up with Samsung Electronics at any time.

For Samsung Electronics, if TSMC surpasses this field, it may be behind production capacity.Especially in Asia 1Nm super fine technology has reached the limit, rectangular PCB packaging technology is expected to become a decisionThe key factor of the capacity of semiconductor chip.along with The demand for AI semiconductors has increased, and the production capacity has become more and more critical. Semiconductor companies that take the lead in using rectangular PCB packaging technology are expected to achieve strategic advantages in the AI market.

Yole Group said that FOWLP is still the mainstream carrier type, and FOPLP is still regarded as a niche market.Yole Intelligence estimates that the market size of the FOPLP market in 2022 will be about $ 41 million, and it is expected that the annual growth rate of 32.5% will be reached in the next five years, and it will increase to US $ 221 million by 2028.

The use of FOPLP will grow faster than the overall fan -out market, and its market share compared to FowlP will increase from 2% in 2022 to 8% in 2028.This means that as the launch of more panel production lines and higher yields bring betterCost benefits,FOPLP is expected to grow in the next few years.

 03 The challenge of the industry in the industry to see the rectangular substrate

Challenge 1: persuade customers to use new technologies

For semiconductor suppliers, the critical point of turning from wafer -level fans to panel -level fan depends on risk and cost.FOPLP needs to produce units that are equivalent to FOWLP output at a much lower cost.The wafer fan technology appeared earlier than the panel technology, and PowerTech Technology Inc. Marketing Director Daniel Fann said.Unless there are emergency needs, it is a challenge to convince our customers to evaluate the facade fan.In addition, we need to prove that the noodle fan has a similar production output as the wafer fan.

Challenge 2: The current craft is more suitable for round substrates

Mark Li, a semiconductor analyst at Bernstein Research, said that the FOPLP trend is yes, because the AI chipset will require each package to accommodate more and more chips.As chip manufacturers squeeze more computing capabilities from chips for AI data centers, the packaging size will only become larger and larger.But this is still in the early stages.For example, coating the optical glue in the new -shaped substrate is one of the bottlenecks.It is necessary to promote the design of equipment manufacturers like TSMC chip manufacturers.

Doug Scott, senior vice president of AMKOR Worse Service Business Department, said that in general, FOPLP uses square or rectangular support panel, so any rotary coating technology needs to be replaced by layer pressure or sprayThe uniformity of metal deposition, plating and etching process of non -round large panels needs to be consistent.Panel pre -processing and post -processing also need to be defined, depending on the method and process steps of FOPLP processing.

In general, the transformation of the rectangular substrate requires large -scale transformation of facilities, including upgrading the robotic arm and automation material processing system to handle different shapes of substrates.This may be a leap Long -term planning from 5 to 10 years.In the short term, the round substrate does not need to be too square.