Plan Optik AG

• Booth: 1327

YOUR EXPRESS SUPPLIER FOR HIGH-QUALITY GLASS WAFERS

Glass, fused silica and silicon for MEMS and semiconductors.

Plan Optik AG is the leading manufacturer of structured wafers when it comes to technology. In sectors such as consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, chemistry and pharmaceuticals these wafers are essential components used as active elements for numerous applications in MEMS technology. The wafers of glass, glass-silicon compounds or quartz are available in sizes up to 300 mm diameter. Wafers by Plan Optik provide high-precision surfaces. Plan Optik wafers are available to minimum tolerances with application-specific structuring and complex material combinations.

Plan Optik AG's extensive experience in the integration of optical, electronic or chemical functions within a wafer as the basis of MEMS applications has made the company the preferred partner of large international manufacturers. Based on Plan Optik's expert knowledge the wafers are developed in collaboration with customers such as OSRAM, Infineon, Motorola, Samsung, Honeywell and Bosch.

 Press Releases

• Plan Optik is driving connectivity to the next level (20211206)

  Elsoff. Plan Optik AG, the leading manufacturer of customized wafers from glass, quartz or glass-silicon compound materials has launched its new Cu-Interposer technology at SEMICON Europa 2019. 

  The progressive miniaturization, increasing integration density and requirements for more powerful signal routing create the need for 3D integration. Interposer technologies for rewiring have been developed for efficient communication with high transmission rates in the 3D chip stack or 3D system package. At present, organic interposers are predominantly used for these technologies. Organic interposers can be produced inexpensively, but are no match for the modern and increasing demands on 3D integration and high transfer rates. Through Glass Via Wafers (TGVs) offer a cost-effective alternative to the costly silicon interposer technology. TGV interposers are a promising technology for three-dimensional and high-density hybrid integration. For high-frequency applications and optoelectronic components, insulation layers are integrated and therefore not required compared to silicon technology for industrial solutions like the creations of chips or using an Hydraulic Quick Coupling for building industrial solutions.

  But: There is no established solution to produce glass interposers at wafer level, which provides all the required properties for high-frequency applications. For this reason, Plan Optik has developed a new technology to produce interposers with an applied copper layer, which is particularly suitable for high-frequency applications.

  Next Generation Interposer

  As a first step, Plan Optik will be able to offer Interposers as drilled glass wafers with a copper layer. Those Interposer wafers will be available in sizes up to 300 mm with hole diameters down to 100 µm (depending on wafer thickness). At present, customized Redistribution Layers (RDL) can be integrated on wafer sizes up to 8”. The wafer thickness ranges from 200 µm up to 1 mm. Plan Optik’s Cu-Interposer can be produced as a wafer, as panels or as boards depending on customer needs. With a minimum hole distance equal to via diameter and a Cu-layer thickness starting from 1 µm Cu-Interposer are perfectly suitable for high-frequency applications like for example 5G broadband transmission, radar and imaging sensors, biosensors or beam steering networks. 

  More products coming soon

  In the next steps Plan Optik will be able to add via fillings and pluggings to raise the device on the Interposer / Board as well as adding solder masks soon. Furthermore, Plan Optik’s latest interposer technology also paves the way for more exciting products and applications such as Glass-Circuit-Boards (GCB) with Integrated Passive Devices (IDP) like capacitors, resistors or coils as well as products with highest integration density, which will be used to realize antenna modules. 

  –> https://planoptik.com/cu-interposer/

• Carrier Wafers for Semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing (20211206)

  As technology is rapidly moving forward the reduction of device and chip size is playing an important role to be able to implement as many chips and sensors in smallest space. For this reason thickness reduction of the semiconductor wafers is necessary. Thin semiconductor wafers (thickness around 50-100 µm) are flexible and fragile. A temporary mechanical stabilization is needed in order to enable processing of the wafer and further decrease device wafer thickness.

  For that the device wafers are temporarily bonded to the carrier. During processing the carrier wafer is used as a mechanical and handling support and can be detached after processing, whereby different de-bonding technologies are used:

  Carriers for chemical release

  Using chemical release process, a solvent gets in contact to the adhesive and releases it. For this type of de-bonding, thousands of through holes through the carrier wafer are enabling consistent contact and fast decomposition of the adhesive.

  Carrier for laser release

  After processing the adhesive interlayer will be exposed by using a laser. After exposure the interlayer will lose its adhesion and the device and carrier wafers can be separated.

  Carriers for thermal release

  By heating up the processed wafer stack the adhesive interlayer will loose its adhesion and the device wafer can be released from the carrier by a so called shear or slide-off de-bond.

  Plan Optik is offering the plain carrier (excluding the adhesives) but is closely co-operating with adhesive and equipment makers. Glass is used as carrier wafer material due to its mechanical stability and chemical resistance. All Plan Optik carrier wafers can be reused up to 30 times (depending on the details of the used process).

  In order to reduce the risk of bow or warp the cte-match between semiconductor device wafer from e.g. Si, GaAs, InP or SiC can be adjusted by using different types of glass. The transparency of glass is not only used for laser de-bonding process but furthermore for in-process inspection. Also laser markings or QR-codes can be implemented for process traceability.

  If you are interested to learn more about Carriers for temporary bonding and de-bonding and how these carriers can be applied to your thin wafer handling process make sure to contact us!

• Glass wafers for pressure sensor applications (20211206)

  Sensors and Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) have changed the way how we interact with technology and how it interacts with itself and our environment. Without them we would not have smartphones, smart homes or wearable devices as smart watches as well as a huge range of industrial and medical devices that require the functionality provided by MEMS and Sensors.

  One of these sensors that has been first developed decades ago is the pressure sensor, which is used in a wide variety of applications. These range from automotive as tire-pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) or oil and gas pressure sensing to healthcare applications as blood-pressure measurement and sensors integrated in the tip of a catheter or smartphones, where pressure sensors are used to enhance GPS navigation or weather forecasting. Furthermore pressure sensors are used for process control in production lines and commercial or industrial buildings.

  Plan Optik AG, the leading manufacturer of blank and patterned wafers from glass and quartz supplies companies from start-ups to international large scale manufacturers that are developing and manufacturing MEMS Pressure Sensors.

  Blank Glass wafers are used as substrates to manufacture MEMS sensors and membranes whereas patterned wafers with cavities or through holes are used to encapsulate the pressure sensor die. Cavities can be used to encapsulate a reference pressure and through holes connect the membrane to the environment to enable pressure measurement. The encapsulation is done by using a wafer level packaging (WLP) approach. Often anodic bonding between the sensor from Silicon and cap-wafers from glass is used to create a hermetic encapsulation. Therefore Plan Optik uses cte adapted materials. After packaging the dies are separated by dicing the wafer.

  Compared to other materials glass offers long term stability as well as chemical and thermal resistance. Its transparent property allows doing in-process inspection of the MEMS die which leads to higher throughput and can help to reduce cost by increase of yield. In addition glass wafers can be marked with laser marking or QR-codes for process traceability.

  If you are interested in how glass wafers can be used in your MEMS, Sensor or Semiconductor application get in touch with our engineers by clicking the link below or mailing to sales@planoptik.com.