A New Coreless Substrate Technology

Abstract

Coreless substrate technology has been viewed as the holy grail of organic substrates for a long time. The benefit of this substrate concept is to reach the same level of wireability as in multi-layer ceramic substrates at lower cost and better electrical performance. Most approaches to date were based on materials like ABF or other resin systems with little reinforcement which resulted in substrates which were very prone to warping before die assembly and even more so after die attach. Here, the approach is to pattern plate the circuit pattern on a temporary carrier. In a second step, studs are plated for the future via interconnections. In a third step, prepreg is laminated over the prior structures. If a copper foil is included in the lamination step then the studs are accessed with etching openings in the copper foil and cleaning the top of the pillars to allow a plated connection in a pattern plating process. By repeating the appropriate steps of above on this substructure, a multi-layer coreless substrate can be built. The strength is equivalent to PBGA type substrates of equivalent thickness.

Embedded component substrates moving forward

“…ASE has developed a new way type of coreless substrate technology based on pattern plating called a-S 3TM [7]. The schematic process flow is shown in Fig.…”

Thin packaging - What is next?

“…Finally they are coming into use with the appropriate warpage management during die assembly and board assembly. Coreless substrates have been introduced into high volume applications recently [2][3][4].…”