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November 7, 2022

Comet Yxlon: The Future of Advanced Packaging is X-Ray

SEMI spoke with Christian Driller, Vice President of Research and Development at Comet Yxlon, about opportunities for advanced packaging manufacturers to accelerate time-to-market and increase yield using x-ray inspection. Driller shared his views ahead of Comet Yxlon’s presentation at the Advanced Packaging Conference (APC) on November 16 at SEMICON Europa 2022, in Munich, Germany. Registration is open.

Caption: Comet Yxlon’s Cheetah Evo Semi system, performing a laminography batch-scan for multiple advanced packages to provide cross sectional images.

SEMI: Please introduce Comet Yxlon.

Driller: Comet Yxlon designs and produces fully fledged high-end x-ray and CT system solutions for industrial environments, from R&D to production settings with integrated services based on artificial intelligence and data analytics. In short Comet Yxlon stands for Deeper insights. Deeper understanding

SEMI: How is that relevant to the semiconductor industry?

LogoDriller: The semiconductor industry has always been a technology-driven industry where speed matters. History has shown that only a few companies have been able to remain at the leading edge, and node size decreases result in significantly higher costs. One cost driver is verification. Optical inspection has been used in packaging for years and has provided sufficient speed and performance.

However, the current and next generations of packages present more challenges for optical inspection. IC packages are getting more complex and have smaller critical dimensions. While scaling continues and the need for verification increases, we believe x-ray inspection will become a complimentary sensor to provide actionable information within the IC process development and process monitoring.

SEMI: What are the greatest opportunities for semiconductor companies in terms of market potential of new and emerging applications?

Driller: When looking at projections towards 2030, the three key growth contributors of the semi industry are computing and data storage, wireless communication, and automotive electronics.

SEMI: How are applications driving demand in the semiconductor industry?

Driller: In combination with the key growth drivers previously mentioned, growth in the area below 10nm nodes will increase, driven mainly by computing and data storage. Take, for example, automotive electronics: a Porsche 911 from 1978 contained one electric control unit and eight semiconductors.

Electric cars today contain 50 to 90 electric control units and 5,000 to 7,000 semiconductors. In the future, autonomous driving applications will drive this demand even further. In addition, the automotive industry will move from relatively large node sizes to more advanced nodes. These underlying growth drivers are also found in computing and data storage, and wireless communication.

SEMI: More than Moore has been in discussion for years, and advanced packaging has become increasingly instrumental in enabling further miniaturization. How has Comet Yxlon evolved its product portfolio to support these new opportunities for manufacturers?

Driller: We launched dedicated semiconductor products such as the FF35 Semi CT inspection system for research and failure analysis in lab environments. It quickly identifies issues in a non-destructive way. We also launched the Cheetah Evo Semi, an x-ray inspection tool that brings visibility to defects in the shortest possible time. The next generation of Cheetah Evo Semi will be launched at SEMICON Europa 2022 during the Advanced Packaging Conference.

 

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Comet Yxlon Cheetah Evo Semi x-ray inspection tool

 

SEMI: In terms of performance enhancements, what does x-ray inspection offer that typical methods (optical, FIB-SEM) do not?

Driller: The ultimate goals of our customers are to speed up time-to-market and increase yield. Therefore, inspection plays a crucial role – especially within advanced packages where there is more complexity and inspection is more challenging. Inspection is done to collect actionable information to improve products, to develop processes and continuous monitoring, and to enable process improvements.

There are three primary requirements for inspection tools: find critical defects, be extremely fast, and provide actionable information about the product and process and not solely images. When comparing optical, x-ray and FIB-SEM inspection, there are a few key differentiators. Optical inspection is very fast but has limits in finding critical defects below 100µm and in complex structures, though it is non-destructive. 

FIB-SEM provides ground truth information and can detect defects at the nano level. However, the process is very slow, and it is a destructive method. X-ray inspection offers the silver lining of the previous two methods: find critical defects below 100µm up to nano at an acceptable speed (it is slower than optical inspection but significantly faster than FIB-SEM) while providing actionable information in minutes by using automated defect recognition solutions. All three methods have their place; however, I believe x-ray inspection will become increasingly important for zero defect test strategies.

 

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Comet Yxlon’s Cheetah Evo Semi system performing a laminography batch-scan for multiple advanced packages to provide cross-sectional images.

 

SEMI: Why is it important for an inspection process to be non-destructive?

Driller: There are two main reasons why an inspection method should be non-destructive: costs and environmental considerations.

A single advanced package costs between USD $500 to $1,500 (internal cost, not external sales price) and thus yield is critical; every package that remains in the manufacturing flow will create value, i.e., it can be sold. Scrapped packages, on the other hand, represent wasted efforts of valuable resources within a highly energy demanding industry.

SEMI: Why hasn't there been industry-wide adoption of x-ray inspection as the preferred method?

Driller: In the past, x-ray inspection tools were not advanced enough in terms of image quality, speed, and automation. This is changing and there has been broader market adoption in recent years. 

SEMI: At SEMICON Europa, your colleague Isabella Drolz will talk about why the future of advanced packaging inspection is x-ray.

Driller:  Yes indeed, during the Advanced Packaging Conference, Isabella will showcase our product’s capabilities and what they will be able to achieve in the near future for C4 bumps and micro bumps. She will also provide examples of how x-ray inspection may be used to create more value in the ramp up process from R&D to manufacturing. Readers are invited to tune into the presentation on November 16 and to reach out to our team onsite. See you soon in Munich!

Learn more about Comet Yxlon.

HSSince 2020 Christian Driller has been VP of R&D at Comet Yxlon, developing high-end x-ray and CT inspection solutions. He formed an agile R&D organization, focusing on customer problems, while forming a passionate and target driven team. In 2017 he joined Comet Yxlon as VP of Business Excellence, driving the professionalization across all functions of the company. His career began 2012 in automotive as Business Consultant at Porsche Consulting focusing on optimizing and restructuring R&D departments within the automotive industry and suppliers. Driller holds a master’s in finance from ESB Reutlingen University and a Bachelor of Engineering from Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University with Dr. Ing. h.c.F. Porsche AG as his cooperating company.

Cassandra Melvin is Senior Director of Business Development and Operations at SEMI Europe.