Integrated circuits may be formed on semiconductor wafers made from materials such as silicon. The semiconductor wafers are processed to form various electronic devices thereon. The wafers are diced into semiconductor chips, which may then be attached to a package substrate using a variety of known methods. The package substrate is commonly formed from ceramics or polymers having conducting regions thereon. The die on the package substrate may be encapsulated with a polymer material for protection. In one known method for attaching a chip or die to a package substrate, the die may have solder bump contacts which are electrically coupled to the integrated circuit. The solder bump contacts extend onto the contact pads of a package substrate, and are typically attached in a thermal reflow process. Electronic signals may be provided through the solder bump contacts to and from the integrated circuit.
The material of the package substrate typically does not provide a match with the material of the integrated circuit die with respect to the coefficient of thermal expansion. Thermal expansion mismatch can lead to undesirable stresses developing in the electronic assembly during processing procedures, in particular, during heating and cooling operations. Such stresses may cause cracks in the electronic assembly or individual components thereon, and lead to failure or performance degradation. In addition, a larger pitch between contacts and larger solder balls is sometimes required in order to provide adequate mechanical strength of the electrical connections. Furthermore, the size difference between the die and the package substrate may also lead to difficulties in layout and signal routing from the substrate to the die.
As a result of one or more problems such as those described above, interposer structures have been placed between the die and the package substrate. Such interposer structures provide better thermal expansion characteristics in the electronic assembly. Interposers also can add to the functionality of the package, such as permitting better layout and routing of signals from the die to the package substrate. Active and passive devices may also be formed in the interposer itself. In addition, the use of an interposer can permit the use of smaller solder bump contacts and smaller pitch between contacts, due to the lower stresses in the device.
Embodiments are described by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, which are not drawn to scale, wherein:
In manufacturing a structure including the package substrate 10, interposer 12, and die 14, the interposer 12 may be coupled to the package substrate 10 by reflowing the first solder bumps 16. The die may be coupled to the interposer by reflowing the second solder bumps 18. During the second reflow process, for coupling the die 14 to the interposer 12, the first solder bumps 16 between the interposer 12 and the package substrate 10 will usually be reflowed for a second time. This second reflowing of the first solder bumps 16 can change the shape of the first solder bumps 16 and even cause partial or total collapse of the first solder bumps 16. These changes to the shape of the first solder bumps 16 can change the size of the gap between the package substrate 10 and the interposer 12, which can lead to various problems in the electronic assembly.
As illustrated in
Box 50 is dispensing flux on the interposer for coupling the die to the interposer. Box 52 is supplying a wafer to be processed into dice. Box 54 is preparing a die to be positioned on the interposer. Box 56 is positioning the die on the interposer and attaching the die to the interposer by reflowing solder. During this operation, the gap control structures are already in place and act to control the gap height between the substrate and interposer so that it does not change during the reflow operation to attach the die to the interposer. Box 58 is defluxing the residual flux material. Box 60 is prebaking the assembly to prepare the surfaces between the substrate and the interposer and the surfaces between the interposer and the die for introduction of an underfill material. The underfill material may be formed from a variety of materials, including, for example, polymers. Box 62 is introducing the underfill material between the substrate and interposer and interposer and die. Box 64 is attaching a heat spreader to the die using a suitable process. Box 66 is electrical testing of the assembly, if desired. Box 68 indicates the process is completed. Box 70 is additional reliability and stress testing, if desired. It should be appreciated that a number of the operations described above are not necessary in various embodiments. For example, in certain embodiments, a heat spreader is not needed, and a fluxless process may be used. Other examples of steps that may be omitted include, but are not limited to, the testing steps.
Box 90 is providing a die to be coupled to the interposer. A second group of solder bumps are formed on the die. In an alternative embodiment, the second group of solder bumps may be formed on the interposer. Box 92 is positioning the die over the interposer (or positioning the interposer over the die), so that the second group of solder bumps is positioned between the interposer and the die. Box 94 is heating to reflow the second group of solder bumps to couple to die to the interposer. Box 96 indicates that a package including a die on an interposer on a substrate is formed. Additional operations, including for example, forming an underfill between the layers, may be performed if desired.
The computer 301 further may further include memory 309 and one or more controllers 311a, 311b . . . 311n, which are also disposed on the motherboard 307. The motherboard 307 may be a single layer or multi-layered board which has a plurality of conductive lines that provide communication between the circuits in the package 305 and other components mounted to the board 307. Alternatively, one or more of the CPU 303, memory 309 and controllers 311a, 311b . . . 311n may be disposed on other cards such as daughter cards or expansion cards. The CPU 303, memory 309 and controllers 311a, 311b . . . 311n may each be seated in individual sockets or may be connected directly to a printed circuit board. A display 315 may also be included.
Any operating system and various applications as known in the art execute on the CPU 303 and reside in the memory 309. The content residing in memory 309 may be cached in accordance with known caching techniques. Programs and data in memory 309 may be swapped into storage 313 as part of memory management operations. The computer 301 may comprise any computing device known in the art, such as a mainframe, server, personal computer, workstation, laptop, handheld computer, telephony device, network appliance, virtualization device, storage controller, network controller, etc.
The controllers 311a, 311b . . . 311n may include a system controller, peripheral controller, memory controller, hub controller, I/O bus controller, video controller, network controller, storage controller, etc. For example, a storage controller can control the reading of data from and the writing of data to the storage 313 in accordance with a storage protocol layer. The storage protocol of the layer may be any of a number of known storage protocols. Data being written to or read from the storage 313 may be cached in accordance with known caching techniques. A network controller can include one or more protocol layers to send and receive network packets to and from remote devices over a network 317. The network 317 may comprise a Local Area Network (LAN), the Internet, a Wide Area Network (WAN), Storage Area Network (SAN), etc. Embodiments may be configured to transmit data over a wireless network or connection. In certain embodiments, the network controller and various protocol layers may employ the Ethernet protocol over unshielded twisted pair cable, token ring protocol, Fibre Channel protocol, etc., or any other network communication protocol known in the art.
While certain exemplary embodiments have been described above and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments are merely illustrative and not restrictive of the current invention, and that this invention is not restricted to the specific constructions and arrangements shown and described since modifications may occur to those having ordinary skill in the art.
This application is a divisional of prior U.S. application Ser. No. 11/114,392, filed Apr. 25, 2005, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
Parent | 11114392 | Apr 2005 | US |
Child | 11612471 | Dec 2006 | US |