As the pace of Moore's Law slows down, the semiconductor industry is facing changes and challenges. As a key technical link in the post-Moore era, the role of packaging and testing technology is becoming more and more prominent. What are the new development trends of the packaging and testing industry in 2024?What are the new packaging and testing technology paths worth paying attention to?In response to these problems, the reporter of "China Electronics News" interviewed Zheng Li, CEO of Changdian Technology. packaging and testing industry".It's warm and cold
Zheng Li predicts that the packaging and testing industry will be "warm and cold" in 2024, and will usher in a more obvious market rise in 2025 or 2026.
First of all, the market growth of the packaging and testing industry has benefited from the recovery of consumer electronics and the boost of the storage market. Zheng Li said that with the expansion of data centers and the popularization of cloud computing, the storage market has shown substantial growth and will become the "driving force" for the recovery of the packaging and testing industry.
In addition, the recovery of the packaging and testing industry also benefits from the continuous approach of the post-Moore era. Zheng Li believes that as the chip manufacturing process approaches the physical limit, the chip industry needs packaging and testing technology to carry the banner of performance improvement in the future. This not only boosts the market demand for packaging and testing, but also puts forward requirements for the diversification of packaging technology.
For the current situation of the recovery of the packaging and testing market and the increase of technology types, both packaging and testing companies and wafer factories will face many challenges, which are difficult to solve by themselves. Zheng Li said.
Changdian Technology intelligent manufacturing production line.
Green sustainability is key
The packaging and testing factory uses a variety of high-precision test equipment and control systems in the production process, which consumes a lot of electricity, heat and other energy. With the gradual recovery of the packaging and testing industry and the gradual improvement of factory utilization, green and sustainable development has also become the focus of attention of packaging and testing enterprises.
Zheng Li believes that in the context of today's green development, as an industry with high energy consumption and high resource consumption, green development is no longer a slogan, but an urgent problem that must be faced and solved.
Green and sustainable development is not only the social responsibility of enterprises, but also the production technology innovation that the entire industry must face in the next 5-10 years. For packaging and testing enterprises, achieving green and sustainable development can effectively reduce production costs, optimize resource allocation, and improve economic benefits. Zheng Li said.
It is understood that in order to reduce energy consumption, the packaging and testing plant needs to take a series of energy-saving measures. For example, optimizing production processes, adopting energy-saving equipment, and strengthening energy management. Zheng Li believes that in order to reduce energy consumption, the packaging and testing plant not only needs its own efforts, but also needs to work with first-chain partners to achieve sustainable production methods by jointly analyzing and optimizing production processes and improving energy efficiency.
Wide bandgap semiconductor packages are worth paying attention to.
With the continuous popularization of the concept of green and sustainable development, wide bandgap semiconductors also show huge market growth potential.
Zheng Li believes that the development of green energy industries such as new energy vehicles and photovoltaic power generation provides a good opportunity for the application of wide bandgap semiconductor power devices. To ensure the stable and reliable performance of wide bandgap semiconductor devices, advanced packaging technology is indispensable.
Taking 5G RF technology as an example, in order to achieve the high bandwidth, high speed, and low latency characteristics of 5G, the industry has adopted a large number of wide bandgap semiconductor devices such as gallium nitride, silicon carbide, and gallium nitride-on-silicon in 5G RF technology. This also means that more advanced packaging technology is needed to integrate wide bandgap semiconductor components with different physical characteristics and realize high-speed, low-latency signal transmission, so as to maximize the energy efficiency of wide bandgap semiconductors. "Although the technical difficulty is very high, it is also a key part of improving the signal transmission efficiency of 5G and the future 6G, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 7, etc. Zheng Li said.
In the scenario of new energy vehicles and charging piles, the demand for high-power fast charging puts forward higher requirements for the performance of silicon carbide devices. Packaging technology can improve device performance in terms of heat dissipation performance, power transmission efficiency, integration and miniaturization, reliability, and manufacturing cost to better meet the needs of high power, high temperature, and fast charging.
In addition, sensors are one of the main application areas for wide bandgap semiconductors. With the wide application of sensors in smartphones and other devices, how to achieve the miniaturization and high performance of sensors, and ensure their reliability and stability is the focus of attention in the industry. This can be achieved by optimizing the packaging process, for example, by using advanced miniaturized packaging technologies to reduce chip size and power consumption.
Author丨Shen Cong Editor丨Zhang Xinyimei Editor丨Maria Producer丨Lian Xiaodong