CPI advancement in integrated fan-out (InFO) technology

Advanced mobile computing devices nowadays demand for ever-increasing functionality, performance and bandwidth. The complexity of functional integration in mobile device has made it more challenging for wire bond and C4 bump flip chip packaging to meet the requirement of high I/O count and high density integration. Moreover, the extreme low-k (ELK) dielectric materials in the back-end-of-line (BEOL) must be utilized to meet performance requirements from the advanced silicon technology nodes. In this paper, the maximum ELK stress for advanced mobile SoC integrated by different packaging technologies, aka integrated fan-out (InFO), chip last fan-out wafer level package (CL-FOWLP), and flip chip package, were evaluated by FEA first. Then the governing mechanisms behind the ELK stress were analyzed. The InFO outperforms CL-FOWLP and flip chip package in the maximum ELK stress due to its simplified architecture and fabrication process. With a low ELK stress, InFO technology can play an important role in enabling more advanced mobile ICs and high performance SoC packaging for the future 4C applications.