New technical platform on chip packaging dedicated to practical training in microelectronics

The world is increasingly governed by digital equipment based on integrated circuits (IC), i.e. microelectronics devices. In this highly technical field, know-how is a fundamental asset for the future graduates, whatever their level of diploma. The topic of IC packaging that used to be more straightforward than the technology intensive front-end CMOS device fabrication process, is becoming a high-end technology aiming at hybrid integration, 3D-IC (three-dimension integrated circuits), chiplets... In the frame of the French national microelectronics network and of one of its members, the Microelectronics Grenoble center, CIME Nanotech, a practical platform on packaging of electronic chips was set-up. It offers to students, in the first stage, at professional license level, the possibility to work on dedicated equipment and to proceed to the technological steps. These operations provide students with a complete overview of the stages involved in IC packaging. These steps range from transfer onto a ceramic substrate, through quality control, to assembly on a printed circuit board. We focus on flip chip technology, serigraphy (Screen Printing), Wire-Bonding, Ball Bonding and Dicing, the main approaches for packaging. The first results encourage the center to extend the activity to engineers and to lifelong learning trainees.