As transistor miniaturization approaches physical limits, Moore's Law, which once drove the doubling of chip performance, is showing signs of fatigue. This "process technology arms race" that has lasted for half a century is quietly reaching a turning point.
As the industry shifts its focus from micro-engraving at the nanoscale to innovations in system-level integration, advanced packaging technology has quickly taken center stage in the industry as a game-changer. Through disruptive solutions such as system-in-package, wafer-level packaging, 3D stacking, and Chiplet heterogeneous integration, it redefines the path for chip performance leaps.
According to forecasts from market research firm Yole, the global advanced packaging market size will grow from $44.3 billion in 2022 to $78.6 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.6%, becoming the main growth driver in the packaging and testing market.
This growth forecast reflects the continuous market demand for advanced packaging solutions. Especially with the rapid rise of the AI chip wave and the capacity constraints of TSMC's CoWoS, the market has realized that the "More than Moore" trend brought by advanced packaging technology is penetrating the commercial market at a faster-than-expected rate, becoming a key layout point for the new round of development in the semiconductor industry.
Against this trend, enterprises across the industrial chain are flocking to the advanced packaging track, bringing incremental space to the upstream material market.
As a core upstream component of the industrial chain, advanced packaging materials play a crucial role. Their performance directly determines packaging density, reliability, and functionality, serving as a solid foundation for driving the continuous progress and development of advanced packaging technology, and bringing huge opportunities to packaging material manufacturers.
Among them, Heraeus Electronics' focus on advanced packaging solder pastes, one-pass printing, and bump printing processes are key technologies for realizing many advanced packaging processes, meeting challenges and opportunities in the current era.
Product Innovation: Breakthroughs in Advanced Packaging Solder Paste and Bump Manufacturing Technology
At the recently held 2025 SEMICON China exhibition, Mr. Zhang Hanwen, Global Product Manager of Advanced Packaging Solder Materials at Heraeus Electronics, in an interview with Semiconductor Industry Observer, highlighted the unique advantages of Heraeus' Welco T6 & T7 solder pastes, as well as innovative printing processes and high-precision bump manufacturing technologies, aiming to help the advanced packaging industry enter a new era of efficient mass production.
Mr. Zhang Hanwen, Global Product Manager of Advanced Packaging Solder Materials at Heraeus Electronics
Welco T6&T7 Water-Soluble Solder Paste: A Powerful Tool for Addressing High-Density Integration Challenges
It is well-known that in the field of electronic manufacturing, solder paste, as a key material connecting components and circuit boards, its excellent electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, stability, and oxidation resistance are crucial to welding quality and product reliability.
Currently, with the vigorous development of applications such as 5G, artificial intelligence, automotive, and high-performance computing, the specifications of electronic devices are becoming increasingly compact, and more and more chip functions are integrated into shrinking packaging systems. In this process, the advanced packaging field faces growing demands and multiple challenges such as high-density integration, thermal management, reliability, and sustainability, urgently requiring innovations in material solutions.
Mr. Zhang Hanwen stated that to address these challenges, Heraeus Electronics has launched new water-soluble T6&T7 powder solder pastes, Welco AP520, and water-soluble flux AP500 series solutions, aiming to meet various needs of advanced packaging through material innovation and process collaboration.
According to reports, Heraeus Electronics' Welco AP520 is a water-soluble printing solder paste using unique powder manufacturing technology. It is specifically designed for fine-pitch passive components and flip-chip mounting in system-in-package applications. It exhibits excellent demolding performance when the minimum stencil opening is 55μm, and after 12 hours of continuous printing, no missing points or bridging defects are observed, demonstrating excellent printing stability, with a long operating time, no splattering, and low void rate.
Based on these advantages, Welco AP520 has become an ideal choice for fine-pitch passive components and flip-chip mounting in next-generation system-in-package applications in fields such as 5G communications, smart wearable devices, and electric vehicles, occupying an irreplaceable position in high-end electronic product manufacturing.
Mr. Zhang Hanwen pointed out that Heraeus Electronics' solder paste products are different from industry peers. Compared with other manufacturers that have transitioned from traditional SMT, Heraeus Electronics directly faces the challenges of increasing specifications for solder paste materials due to chip miniaturization, focusing on process conditions under narrow pitches while ensuring quality and stability.
Notably, in terms of solder powder manufacturing, compared with the industry's common "sieving" process, which causes solder powder loss, oxidation, and yield challenges due to layer-by-layer screening, Heraeus Electronics adopts advanced Welco powder manufacturing technology, making the solder powder sphericity close to a true sphere, with a smooth surface and concentrated particle size distribution. By adjusting process parameters, it can accurately produce solder powder of the required size.
It is evident that the advanced Welco powder manufacturing technology endows AP520 with extreme printing consistency and low void performance, while having advantages in productivity and cost. It is revealed that in addition to the currently launched Type 7 powder technology, finer Type 8 and Type 9 solder powders are also in Heraeus Electronics' R&D plan to meet future ultra-fine pitch application requirements.
Another notable point is that with advanced Welco solder powder and solder paste products, Heraeus Electronics' AP520 solder paste can complete the integrated printing of passive components and flip chips in just one process.
In this regard, Mr. Zhang Hanwen told the author: "The one-pass printing of passive components and flip-chip pads using Welco AP520 solder paste can successfully replace the process steps of flux dipping and substrate pre-coating, equivalent to simplifying the original two processes (solder paste + flux) into one. This simplifies SiP packaging processing steps, reduces capital expenditure and material costs, while significantly reducing cold solder joints or incomplete solder defects, and eliminating incomplete welding caused by substrate warpage or uneven placement of flip chips."
Overall, in the continuous evolution of electronic packaging technology, material innovation plays a crucial role. Various new materials, including solder paste, are driving electronic packaging towards higher efficiency, higher reliability, and smaller size, continuously meeting customer application needs and promoting industry innovation and progress.
In the future, with the popularization of Chiplet and 3D packaging technologies, solder paste will develop towards nanoscale and multi-functional integration, becoming a key enabling material for the semiconductor industry to break through Moore's Law.
Bump Manufacturing: Printing Process is Expected to Reshape the Industry PatternAt this exhibition, in addition to the Welco series of advanced packaging solder pastes, the innovative high-precision bump printing process and technology are also major highlights and advantages of Heraeus Electronics.
As we all know, chip bumps are one of the key components in advanced packaging, with main functions such as forming electrical connections between chips and substrates, forming structural connections between chips and substrates, and providing heat dissipation paths for chips. In recent years, with the rapid development of advanced packaging, from Ball Grid Array (BGA) balls to Flip Chip (FC) bumps, and then to micro bumps (μBump), the size of bumps has been continuously shrinking, and technical difficulty has been continuously upgrading. From the current mainstream high-end advanced packaging solutions, we can see that HBM, XPU, and the entire package of chip combinations require Bumping processes for external interconnection, indicating that Bumping plays a key role in advanced packaging processes.
As a core technology of advanced packaging, bump manufacturing has evolved into the core engine of the semiconductor industry's "More than Moore" strategy, becoming a key enabling technology in cutting-edge fields such as 5G communication, AI, and HBM, with broad market potential and growth space.
From the current industry situation, ball placement and electroplating are the main technical processes for bump manufacturing, but each faces different technical challenges and limitations. For example, ball placement technology has larger ball diameters, low efficiency, high cost, and high cost of ball placement equipment; electroplating also has shortcomings such as high cost and slow speed, and needs to solve problems such as environmental protection and process stability.
Mr. Zhang Hanwen stated that compared with traditional electroplating and ball placement processes, Heraeus Electronics' Welco T6&T7 solder paste printing process not only has lower cost but also ensures high yield and consistency of bump height. This is attributed to the stable printing volume of Welco solder paste and ultra-low void rate even after multiple reflows. This process has passed large-scale mass production verification, providing semiconductor manufacturers with efficient and reliable high-precision wafer bump solutions.
Welco solder paste printing process can provide more possibilities for bump formation, such as offering more high-reliability alloy options, unlike electroplating processes which are limited. In addition to being used for wafer-level bump formation, Welco solder paste printing is also suitable for substrate pre-tinning applications, which not only greatly reduces substrate costs but also simplifies the process flow and improves production yield.
Based on this advantage, the technical path of manufacturing high-precision bumps through printed solder paste is being re-recognized and adopted by industry customers. Currently, some RF customers are using Heraeus Electronics' printing process for mass production, and more applications will be carried out subsequently.
Looking ahead, with the popularization of advanced packaging technologies such as Chiplet, bump pitches will evolve to below 30μm. Heraeus Electronics is developing new solder paste products and optimizing printing processes to promote packaging efficiency upgrading and cost reduction, providing key support for large-scale production of advanced packaging.
100% Recycled Materials to Support Green Packaging Development
Through market verification of the Welco AP520 series products, Heraeus Electronics has established industry benchmarks in core indicators such as fine-pitch printing and high-reliability welding.
However, Heraeus not only actively responds to and supports customers in terms of solder paste and solutions. On the premise of ensuring welding quality and reliability, reducing environmental pollution and achieving green packaging are also current innovations and challenges.
Against the background of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking, Heraeus Electronics has taken the lead in innovative practices and actively responded to sustainable development initiatives. It is reported that Heraeus Electronics has launched bonding gold wires made of 100% recycled gold and Welco solder paste series products made of 100% recycled tin. By adding recycled tin or recycled gold to the products, it significantly reduces energy consumption and carbon footprint, contributing to environmental sustainability.
Mr. Zhang Hanwen emphasized that there is no difference in quality between solder paste made from recycled tin and that made from mined tin. Before being processed into final products, both recycled gold and mined gold undergo the same strict refining process to ensure consistent product composition and identical properties.
With unchanged performance, compared with obtaining products of the same weight through natural mining and smelting, Heraeus Electronics' recycled tin products can reduce carbon emissions by hundreds of times, and recycled gold products can also bring significant emission reduction effects. This not only helps customers effectively meet carbon neutrality and carbon emission standards but also further demonstrates Heraeus Electronics' firm commitment and practical actions to low-carbon environmental protection. Looking forward, Heraeus Electronics will continue to promote the future development of semiconductor advanced packaging materials with leading material solutions.
Building Core Barriers and Strengthening Localization Layout
It is not difficult to see that whether with the rapid evolution from traditional packaging to advanced packaging, or the rise of technologies such as AI, autonomous driving, and high-performance computing, as a material solution expert, Heraeus Electronics has always followed the technological wave and maintained innovative vitality.
Mr. Zhang Hanwen emphasized that Heraeus Electronics is a R&D-oriented enterprise with technological innovation in its genes. It always keeps an observant eye, continuously explores market and customer pain points and needs, identifies challenges from them, and then tries to turn challenges into opportunities, working with industrial chain partners to move forward bravely in the wave of technological change.
In this process, facing the rise of China's semiconductor industry and its huge market space, Heraeus Electronics has seen new opportunities brought by the vigorous development of China's semiconductor industry. Mr. Zhang Hanwen pointed out that Heraeus Electronics is actively carrying out localization layout in China, establishing an innovation center and R&D laboratory in Shanghai. There are also multiple production bases in China, aiming to realize local R&D, local production, and local sales of products.
At the same time, as an international company, Heraeus Electronics' advantage is not only in providing packaging material products and solutions themselves, but more importantly, relying on the advantages of combining its international vision with local innovation, sharing global innovation achievements and experience with customers, better helping customers solve challenges and achieve breakthroughs, and boosting the renewal of China's semiconductor market.
Looking around, at the key node when the semiconductor industry is moving towards the "post-Moore era", collaborative innovation across all links of the industrial chain is reshaping the semiconductor industry pattern, and the material system is also undergoing a revolutionary transformation. In this technological revolution, Heraeus Electronics has built core barriers in the field of advanced packaging materials through three-dimensional breakthroughs in material science innovation, process collaborative optimization, and ecological integration capabilities.
When 3D packaging and Chiplet technologies become mainstream, and nanomaterials and intelligent processes become standard, Heraeus Electronics already holds the key to opening the post-Moore era, writing the opening chapter for the new round of competition in the semiconductor industry.
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