With the semiconductor market poised for recovery in FY-2024 and a surge in demand anticipated from key customers, PacTech is strategically expanding its business footprint within the Southeast Asian supply chain. This expansion involves significant investments, including $10 million in additional cleanroom space totaling 20,000 sqft, cutting-edge equipment, and factory automation. These enhancements to PacTech Asia’s manufacturing capabilities will result in a substantial increase in bumping capacity, reaching up to 50,000 wafers per month.

Dr. Thorsten Teutsch, CEO of PacTech, expressed enthusiasm about the investment, stating, "We are thrilled to bolster our support for key customers by enhancing our capabilities and capacity. This investment reflects years of dedication, innovation, and hard work, which have earned us the trust and business of our long-term partners. Even amidst global economic challenges, our robust and successful business model continues to thrive."

About PacTech

PacTech is a global leader in advanced wafer bumping, packaging, and solder ball placement equipment. The company also offers plating chemistries and high-volume subcontractor bumping and die prep services for semiconductors, catering to diverse applications in consumer electronics, automotive, RF, and AI technologies. With manufacturing facilities in Germany (HQ), the USA, and Malaysia, PacTech is well-positioned to support the evolving needs of the semiconductor industry worldwide.

For more information, please contact:

PacTech GmbH – Thomas Oppert

Email: oppert@pactech.de

Dr. Thorsten Teutsch, CEO of PacTech, expressed his vision for the company’s future, stating, “Our intent is to strengthen our engineering leverage through 2024, enhancing middle management and leadership across all business units and sites. We are incredibly proud to recognize the exceptional talents of Sy Jiun and Matthias, who have been cultivated within PacTech. This decision reflects our commitment to nurturing and advancing internal talent to drive our strategic initiatives forward.”

Ms. Sim began her journey with PacTech as a Customer Support Manager at the Penang subcon site in 2010, subsequently transitioning to PacTech’s headquarters in Germany as Marketing Manager in 2017. With a master’s degree in project management, Ms. Sim will now lead PacTech’s Wafer Level Packaging business units in Southeast Asia and Germany, overseeing the expansion and ramp-up of WLP services utilizing cutting-edge electroless and electroplating process technologies.

Mr. Fettke, who holds a master’s degree in Laser & Opto-Technology with a specialization in laser material processing, has been instrumental in innovating new laser bonding and soldering technologies at PacTech. He possesses a broad skill set that includes research and development, manufacturing, and product management in the photonics and semiconductor industries. His contributions have led to numerous publications and patents. In his new role as Vice President of Advanced Packaging Equipment, Mr. Fettke will lead the equipment business unit to further advance PacTech’s technological capabilities.

About PacTech

PacTech is a global leader in advanced wafer bumping, packaging, and solder ball placement equipment. The SB2 solder jetting equipment offers unique flux-less and contact-less soldering solutions for camera modules, THT, HDD, and other advanced packaging applications. The Laplace machine platform provides laser automated bonding and reflow solutions along the heterogeneous integration roadmap for packaging of thermally or geometrically challenged semiconductor chips. Additionally, the PacLine series offers high-performance, electroless plating batch systems for fully automated processing of ≥ 300mm wafers. PacTech caters to various markets, including compound semiconductor, photonics, power, 5G, microLED, and MEMS.

PacTech also provides plating chemistries and high-volume subcontractor bumping and die prep services from its manufacturing facilities in Germany (HQ), the USA, and Malaysia.

SB² laser assisted solder jetting process addresses these challenges and overcomes them. The process involves jetting a molten solder droplet onto a THT contact. The solder fills the cavity between the pin and the inside of the vertical interconnect access (VIA), forming a reliable mechanical and electrical connection. This pitch-agnostic process works for various 2D and 3D geometries. It has several critical advantages over wave soldering, the conventional industrial solution to soldering THT contacts. Beside the optional use of flux, it supports suitable pitch applications, as the usable solder ball material size can be downscaled to 30 µm. Moreover, it is a gentler process regarding the thermal impact on the substrate. Thermal damage to sensitive substrate parts can be avoided as the substrate heating via contact with the molten solder is highly localized. Furthermore, previous work has proven that interconnect bonds created in such a way are much more resilient against the effects of thermal aging. This is because the thermal event is shorter by 2-4 orders of magnitude compared to the conventional oven-reflow, solder-iron, or wave soldering bonding processes.

In this work, we created PTH and NPTH THT-contact samples of different geometries and aspect ratios showing various pad metallization (Cu, NiAu, or HASL) and which we then processed with the SB²-Jet method. The resulting test vehicles were subjected to extensive analyses, including microscopic inspection of the bond geometry and X-ray analysis. In addition, the impact on the soldered contacts before and after thermal cycling was microscopically inspected along with metallurgical analysis through cross-sectional polishing.

A model for determining the filling level using a visual scanning system was demonstrated, making the costly and time consuming X-ray analysis or cross-sectional preparation obsolete. Finally, this novel approach’s industrial potential and technological significance are covered, providing an outlook on future technological developments.

You can view the enitre publication here at this link.

Released by:

Matthias Fettke, Gero Bonow, Anne Fisch, Moshir Nasser, Georg Friedrich, Rojhat Baba, Thorsten Teutsch
PacTech – Packaging Technologies
Am Schlangenhorst 7-9, 14641 Nauen, Germany
Fettke@pactech.de