(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to semiconductor packages, and more particular, to electrical connections between semiconductor dies and the related substrate as part of the package.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
The present miniaturization trend in electronics towards higher-performance, smaller and lighter products has resulted in an increasing demand for smaller component packages and/or higher pin counts. The Ball Grid Array (BGA) concept has received much appreciation owing to its inherent, potential benefits to surface mount production. The BGA, taking advantage of the area under the package for the solder sphere interconnections, accommodates the increasing number of I/Os needed.
A cross-section of a typical prior art BGA is shown in
With the general trend of miniaturization the length of said wires between the semiconductor chip and the substrate is causing more and more problems to the designers, especially for high current signals. The miniaturized spacing does not allow for wire landing pads in the via/ball array. Wire landing pads cannot be sized accordingly as the wire diameter shall not be reduced. Wires transporting high current signals must not exceed a critical wire length. There are prior art solutions having, as described, the wire landing pads of the bond wires outside the ball grid. This causes problems with wires being too long. Other solutions are having the landing pads inside the ball grid array close to the die. The disadvantage of this solution is that the grid array has been moved more far away from the semiconductor die and the package is consuming additional space on the motherboard and hence is too expensive. With the progress of miniaturization of semiconductor chips it is a growing challenge for the designers of electronic circuits to find a solution having short wires consuming minimal space on the motherboard.
U.S. Pat. No. (5,741,726 to Barber) describes a semiconductor device having external connections, including power supply connections such as to a power source or ground, is made without resort to wire landing pads. Rather, external connections are directly made from a semiconductor die to a conductive layer. The conductive layer is disposed on one surface of a printed wiring board and is divided into electrically insulated conductive segments. Each of the segments is connected to an external connection, and includes one or more interconnects that can be directly connected to a semiconductor die. The conductive segments are surrounded by an array of wire landing pads, which serve to connect the semiconductor die to further external connections, such as signal connections.
U.S. Pat. No. (6,323,065 to Karnezos) discloses a semiconductor package arrangement including a heat spreader for dissipating heat and a ground plane having a first side that is attached to the heat spreader. The ground plane has a first aperture defining a path to a surface of the heat spreader that is configured to receive a semiconductor die. An interconnect substrate is attached to the ground plane, and the interconnect substrate has a complimentary second aperture over the first aperture of the ground plane. Preferably, the interconnect substrate has a plurality of metal patterns for electrically interconnecting the semiconductor die to electrical connections that are external to the semiconductor arrangement. The package arrangement further includes at least one conductively filled via that is defined through the interconnect substrate and is in electrical contact with the ground plane to establish a direct ground connection from selected ones of the plurality of metal patterns of the interconnect substrate.
U.S. Pat. No. (6,389,689 to Heo) describes a method of fabricating a small-size multi-pin semiconductor package, which is as large as the semiconductor chip mounted thereon. Bond pads formed on semiconductor chip may be arranged at the center or at the edges of the upper surface of said semiconductor chip. A signal output from semiconductor chip is transmitted to a circuit pattern through a wire and then supplied to a motherboard through a solder ball.
A principal object of the present invention is to define a method and a structure to reduce the length of critical electrical connections, e.g. carrying high current signals, high speed signals or radio frequency signals, of a semiconductor package between a semiconductor chip and the related landing pads of said wires on a package substrate without increasing the space required for the semiconductor package.
In accordance with the objects of the invention a method to reduce the length of critical electrical connections of a semiconductor package between bond pads on a semiconductor chip and landing pads on a single-chip substrate has been achieved. Said method is comprising, first, providing a semiconductor chip, a grid array semiconductor package substrate, electrical connections from said semiconductor substrate to external circuitry performed in a grid array and electrical connections between said chip and said substrate. The steps of said method comprise further to identify critical wires requiring landing pads within said grid array due to bond wire-length limitations, then to identify non-critical wires which can have landing pads outside said grid array, to design a grid array creating empty locations within said array as required and identified in the previous steps for landing pads of critical wires, and to design the leads from the landing pads of said critical wires to the next suitable via hole.
In accordance with the objects of this invention a method to reduce the length of critical electrical connections of a semiconductor package between bond pads on semiconductor chips and landing pads on a multi-chip substrate has been achieved. Said method is comprising, first, providing more than one semiconductor chip, a grid array semiconductor package substrate, electrical connections from said semiconductor substrate to external circuitry performed in a grid array and electrical connections between said chip and said substrate. The steps of said method comprise further to identify critical wires requiring landing pads within said grid array due to bond wire-length limitations, to identify non-critical wires which can have landing pads outside said grid array, to design a grid array creating empty locations within said grid array as required and identified in the previous steps for landing pads of critical wires, and to design the leads from the landing pads of said critical wires to the next suitable via hole.
In accordance with the objects of this invention a structure to reduce the length of critical electrical connections of a semiconductor package between a semiconductor chip and a single-chip substrate has been achieved. Said structure comprises a semiconductor chip having bonding pads for electrical connections to landing pads on a substrate where said chip is mounted on, a means of electrical connections between said semiconductor chip and said substrate wherein landing pads on said substrate are provided for said electrical connections, and a substrate said semiconductor chip is mounted on being electrically connected to said chip and to an external circuitry wherein said electrical connections to an external circuit are performed by a grid array arrangement and wherein said landing pads for connections requiring very a limited length are located within said grid array.
In accordance with the objects of this invention a structure to reduce the length of critical electrical connections of a semiconductor package between semiconductor chips and a multi-chip substrate has been achieved. Said structure is comprising more than one semiconductor chip all having landing pads for electrical connections to a substrate where said chips are mounted on, a means of electrical connections between said semiconductor chips and said substrate wherein landing pads on said substrate are provided for said electrical connection, and a substrate said semiconductor chips are mounted on being electrically connected to said chips and to an external circuitry wherein said electrical connections to an external circuit are performed by an grid array arrangement and wherein said landing pads for connections requiring very a limited length are located within said grid array.
In the accompanying drawings forming a material part of this description, there is shown:
The preferred embodiments disclose a method and a structure capable to reduce the wire-lengths of the wires providing the connections of a semiconductor package from a chip to a substrate without increasing the space required on a motherboard.
The BGA design principles allow any number of solder balls or rows of solder balls.
It is obvious to those skilled in art that the method and structure invented is applicable to all kind of BGA technologies which prevent landing pads on top of the balls as single sided substrates, double sided substrates or “via-on-ball” substrates. Additionally the invention is applicable to any kind of array packages as e.g. ball grid array, pin grid array, etc. Additionally said method and structure is applicable to single-chip substrates and to multi-chip substrates as well.
While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
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