HEADLINE NEWS
CARSEM ANNOUNCES 8 MILS PAD PITCH PRODUCTION CAPABILITY FOR THEIR PATENT PENDING FCOL™ TECHNOLOGY City of Industry, CA-September 10, 2002-Carsem, a leading provider of turnkey packaging and test services to the semiconductor industry, announced today that they have enhanced their patent pending FCOL™ (Flip Chip on Leadframe) technology and are now shipping large production volumes of packages that contain semiconductor die with bond pad pitches as small as 8 mils (200 microns). Prior to this the die pad pitch was limited to a minimum of about 16 mils (410 microns). FCOL is the process technology of flipping a bumped die onto a lead frame based package and then molding it using standard plastic package assembly processes. Carsem introduced the technology in 1999 in order to allow their customers to fit a considerably larger die into a standard package. Depending on the package, the technology allows Carsem to fit a die size that is up to 4 times larger in area than a wire-bonded version. In addition, the technology provides about a 60% reduction in electrical parasitics due to the elimination of the wire bonds. This enhanced pad pitch capability now allows Carsem's customers to pack significantly more circuit functions into the same area of silicon. According to Paul Smith, Carsem's Director of Marketing, "We are seeing a high level of interest for this technology and we expect to see our volumes reach hundreds of millions per year over the next few years, especially in our MLP (Micro Leadframe Package) family." "Earlier this year we announced that we were shipping FCOL type products by the millions and are pleased that this now includes the enhanced die pad pitch capability. Having the technology is one thing but the ability to produce packages in large volumes with short cycle times is paramount in today's competitive environment and Carsem has the capacity and technology in place to meet our customer's needs," stated David Comley, Group Managing Director of Carsem Malaysia. About Carsem |