Photonic Debond: Scalability and Advancements

Advanced packaging technology has continuously evolved over the past 10-20 years to become a major driving force in improving integrated circuit (IC) performance. This improvement in IC performance is assisted by the ability to place specialized components near each other for shorter interconnects in the IC packages. Temporary bond and debond (TB/DB) is an enabling technique for this work. TB/DB facilitates many advanced packaging methods such as 2.5D, 3D-IC, fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP), and system-inpackage (SiP). All these architectures require a carrier support system to allow for backside processing of device wafers, including wafer thinning. A variety of TB/DB methods exist, such as thermal slide debond, mechanical debond, chemical release, and laser debond. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages and require proper material selection particular for each method. This paper describes a recently developed debond method called photonic debond. We compare this method with existing TB/DB methods and demonstrate the feasibility of this technique to process a wide range of devices. Additionally, the photonic debond method has a fundamentally different thermal load profile on the devices, enabling novel material selection. This is modeled in this paper. Photonic debond has transitioned from a manually operated debond method to an automated debond system. The new automated debond system enables higher wafer throughput as compared to the four existing debond methods. Advancements made with new debond system enables TB/DB from variety of device wafer sizes and types. Evaluation of debonding for wafers with device topography will be presented.