Press Room

Santa Clara, Calif., November 20th, 2001 – Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc, (NYSE: ASX), one of the world’s largest semiconductor packaging and testing companies, announced that it has completed the development of its 300mm wafer solder bumping technology. Wafer bumping is an advanced packaging technique where ‘bumps’ or ‘balls’ made of solder, are formed on the wafers before being diced into individual chips. Wafer bumping is an essential process for flip chip packaging. The company is now ready to provide the industry’s first complete packaging and testing services for 300mm wafers. A fully automated solder bumping line for 300mm wafers will be installed by the end of the year. In the first quarter of 2002, customers will conduct qualification tests on reliability and quality. After which, the new line will be capable of handling a monthly capacity of 5, 000 300mm wafers.

Demand for advanced solder bumping technology has seen rapid growth as flip-chip technology gains popularity in the packaging of semiconductor chips. High performance microprocessors, switching, graphics chips, wireless – especially Bluetooth – products, and other high-end logic chips manufactured with the 0.13-micron copper technology, form the driving force behind this trend. ASE’s wafer bumping technology has been applied on 150mm and 200mm wafers for several years. The company’s 200mm wafer bumping technology offers a yield rate of 99.0% and is qualified by major IDMs (independent device manufacturers). Developing 300mm wafer packaging and testing services, including wafer sorting, bumping backgrinding, sawing and die attach flip chip, were a natural step for ASE due to the industry’s gradual transition to 300mm wafer fabrication. “The 300mm wafer packaging technology is vital for continuous improvement in the quality and cost of high-technology products. With an area 2.25 times larger than a 200mm wafer, 300mm wafers can greatly lower production costs and boost capacity, ” said J.J. Lee, vice president of Research & Development, ASE Group.

As a matter of fact, ASE has been researching solder bumping for wafers of different sizes and has applied over 30 patents for its efforts. While the competition continue to develop viable solder bumping technology for 300mm wafers, ASE exploited its experience on 150mm and 200mm wafer packaging technologies to successfully migrate to 300mm wafer packaging technology. Customers can expect the same leading edge technology from ASE, for the packaging and testing of their 300mm wafers.