Although there is continued effort in the semiconductor packaging industry to reduce package size along with the never-ending pursuit of cost savings, there remain a significant number of applications requiring a wildly different set of capabilities for die and wire bonding.
The RF, microwave, high brightness LED (HB LED) and optoelectronic (RMO) markets are characterized by lower volume and higher mix when compared to semiconductor packaging. This requires different levels of manual and automatic assembly process steps depending on product and manufacturing maturity. Suppliers can help customers through the various stages of manufacturing automation by providing manual, semi-automatic and fully automatic islands and lines of equipment and process (see last week’s blog on the levels of fully automated manufacturing equipment).
Some additional general differences in characteristics between Semiconductor and RMO products include:
- RMO equipment price is typically higher while throughput is typically lower than equipment built for semiconductor packaging.
- RMO equipment is generally more flexible to handle a wider variety of packages with lower volume. The equipment must handle the variety of packages and allow changeover in a low volume/high mix production environment.
- Semiconductor package formats are generally planar and in standard matrix strip.
- RMO package formats vary significantly. These are non-planar, rarely matrix, and typically handled as individual packages. RMO packages can
have leads protruding out from the bottom or sides. - Many RF packages have multiple substrates at different heights which must be populated with components either before or after substrate placement into the package.
- Typically a wide variety of component types must be placed in the same package which then must be wire bonded as well.
"RF, Microwave, and Optoelectronic Packaging Die and Wire Bonding Case Studies" covers three cases, providing an overview of the requirements and tools available to handle RMO products:
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Download the paper to learn more!
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Janine Hueners
Marketing Specialist
Palomar Technologies, Inc.