
Rudolph Technologies said it was collaborating with an unidentified de-bonding equipment supplier and an IC device manufacturer in the development of 3D advanced semiconductor packaging applications. Rudolph said that the first two revenue-generating Rudolph F30 inspection modules to used in the project would ship in the first quarter of 2011.
“Rudolph Technologies is pleased to participate in such a forward-looking program with two of the industry’s leading technology drivers,” commented Ardy Johnson, Rudolph’s vice president of marketing and product management. “It is gratifying to be recognized and chosen by these top-tier companies as the clear industry leader of inspection and metrology applications within the realm of final manufacturing and packaging”
Inspection is required to to ensure that trimmed wafer edges do not have any hairline cracks, chips or mechanical flaws that may lead to wafer breakage during the thinning process. After wafer thinning, the F30 module can perform a frontside inspection to verify that all of the temporary bonding material has been removed. A backside inspection of a flipped wafer can also be performed to ensure that the thinning process did not mechanically damage the surface and that the TSV contact areas have been properly processed.