This is not really new information to these forums but at least the business
press is starting to wake up to the broader looming technical issues above the
"green" marketing hype... Maybe the EU Parliament will someday do the same
also... ;-)
Best to all,
Joe
"Lead-free rules hit yields, European packagers, says analyst"
Peter Clarke
EE Times
(09/21/2005 12:00 PM EDT)
LONDON — European requirements for lead-free wafer bumping and packaging are
hitting manufacturing yields and also hitting assembly companies in Europe as
the far-east copes better with changes, according to research company Frost &
Sullivan.
As Europe has been the pioneer of lead regulation it is natural that the
European electronic packaging industry leads the world in terms of research and
development — backed by leading microelectronic research institutes such as
Institut fur Zuverlassigkeit/Mikrointegration (IZM Fraunhofer). However, the Eu
ropean industry is facing a problem of underfinancing and stiff competition from
the Far East.
“For instance, Netpack-Europe.org, the official organization for chip
packaging manufacturers in the European Union, is likely to be closed during the year
due to lack of financial support,” said Sivakumar Muthuramalingam, a Frost &
Sullivan research analyst, in a statement. “To combat this issue, packaging
service providers must develop and implement a fiercely aggressive market
strategy with respect to price, customer service, quality and reliability,” he
added.
A range of websites previously operated by Netpack-Europe.org were
unavailable when this story was first posted.
Packaging companies are finding that in some cases the use of lead-free
alternatives is causing a loss of yield, Frost & Sullivan said. Participants
utilize lead-free alternatives such as tin-silver-copper (Sn-Ag-Cu), also called the
SAC system, combined with materials such as gold. However, the slow adoption
of these processes is due to issues such as high yield loss and low
reliability.
“For instance, flip-chip (FC) assembly qualifies for eutectic lead-tin, but
proves to be difficult for lead-free material,” said Muthuramalingam. “High
yield losses occur after the board assembly due to substrate warpage,” he added.
“The integration of lead-free materials into flip-chip and chip scale package
applications is difficult due to the material characteristics such as
stiffness, and material compliance that increasingly makes reliability an issue. To
overcome this, researchers in Germany are continuously working to develop novel
wafer bumping technologies for a wide range of applications,” said
Muthuramalingam.
Although Europe has largely set the agenda around environmental issues with
European Union's Restriction of the Use of Hazardous Substances' (ROHS)
directive Southeast Asian packaging industry participants are intensifying
competition as the packaging service providers in Europe are unable to continue to drive
down prices, Frost & Sullivan said
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