What next for the permanent bonding market?
With the SOI business decreasing, the 3D TSV stack beginning, and the competitive environment changing with EV Group, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron and many new entrants .Yole Développement analyzes the permanent bonding market & technology trends and announces today its new study :Permanent Wafer Bonding report Permanent bonding technology is a key process for a wide range of applications in the semiconductor industry such as MEMS, advanced packaging, LED devices, and SOI substrate applications.
"These have been the 4 main leading applications for permanent bonding for several years. Permanent bonding processes are increasingly more importance within the semiconductor industry", announces Amandine Pizzagalli, Technology& Market Analyst, Advanced Packaging & Manufacturing, Yole Développement (Yole) Under this Permanent Wafer Bonding report , Yole's analysts give an overview of technical characteristics for each existing permanent bonding processes and related applications. They review key technical insight into future permanent bonding technologies trends and challenges. Yole's experts also analyse the market trends and provide a clear mapping of this industry including market metrics & dynamic from 2013 and 2019.
"The permanent bonding market is evolving, and currently dominated and fragmented by three main permanent bonding equipment suppliers: EV Group, SUSS MicroTec, and Tokyo Electron.
"These three vendors today account for almost 80% of the permanent bonding equipment market by focusing on MEMS and Advanced Packaging applications including BSI CMOS Image Sensors, CIS capping WLP, and 3D stack TSV", assures Amandine Pizzagalli, from Yole Développement.
EV Group is still the market leader in permanent bonding technology with more than 70% of market share, but will be challenged by the merging of Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials, two of the largest semiconductor equipment suppliers in the world.
The entrance of aggressive new players is likely to challenge established players in the permanent bonding market.
- Some players have recently entered the market with low barriers of entry such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industry; mainly with customers involved in the R&D sector.
- Other big equipment suppliers have created a challenging environment and stimulate technology innovation for further improvements in the advanced packaging area.
- Tokyo Electron has gained more market share in 2013 from permanent bonding technologies -with significant market share achieved due to their deep involvement in 3D TSV stack bonding technology performed at room temperature.
The merger of Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials questions the involvement of permanent bonding equipment suppliers in future development.
In parallel, SUSS MicroTec, who provided automatic bonders for production for 10 years, stopped making them in 2013. This demonstrates that the permanent bonding market is very challenging.
This big change in the permanent bonding market environment will create a new battle in this field, which is going to be very interesting in the next five years.
TSV INTEGRATION IS CREATING GROWTH IN PERMANENT WAFER BONDING
Permanent bonding technology is a key process for a wide range of applications in the semiconductor industry such as MEMS, Advanced Packaging (BSI CIS, CIS capping WLP, 3D stack TSV), LED devices, and SOI substrate applications. This type of application is quite complex due to the high diversity of existing bonding technologies.
Permanent bonding is today being applied in:
- A large quantity of MEMS devices supported by glass frit and anodic bonding technologies in order to achieve good hermeticity to protect the MEMS sensor.
- LED devices requiring metal bonding (eutectic and thermo-compression bonding) so as to meet higher performance in terms of light extraction.
- CMOS Image Sensors:
- BSI CMOS Image Sensor where one bonding step is required at the Front-End part
- CIS capping WLP to bond the glass cap wafer to the device
- SOI substrate manufacturing supporting the fusion bonding technology.
These have been the 4 main leading applications for permanent bonding for several years. Permanent Bonding processes are increasingly more importance within the Semiconductor industry.
Total permanent bonding market generated almost 5 Million wafers bonded in 8-inch eq, mostly driven by the established applications - BSI CIS and MEMS devices - and is expected to peak at more than 16 Million wafers bonded in 8-inch eq in 2019. The demand for permanent bonding is growing and mainly driven by the miniaturization required for 3D Stack TSV applications.
This report covers and analyses in detail the following applications and permanent bonding technologies:
- Applications: MEMS, advanced packaging including BSI CMOS Image Sensors, CIS capping WLP, 3D stack TSV, LED, SOI applications
- Technologies: fusion, anodic, glass frit, adhesive, metal bonding including eutectic, Transit Liquid Phase, thermo-compression, Cu-Cu/oxide hybrid @ room temperature bonding
It provides a comprehensive overview of all technological aspects of permanent wafer bonding technologies, as well as the main applications they are relevant to.
CU-CU BONDING AT ROOM TEMPERATURE WILL CHANGE THE GAME IF"¦
Total permanent bonding market generated revenue of around $65M in 2013, mostly relying on Anodic bonding, Fusion bonding and Glass frit bonding technologies.
It is expected that this revenue will top at almost $250 M in 2019, growing at a 25% CAGR, fueled by the Cu-Cu bonding/ oxide hybrid performed at room temperature.
New technical developments along the way will be needed for the next generation of MEMS, LED, and Advanced Packaging applications. In the next few years, the permanent bonding market will be supported by metal bonding and bonding performed at room temperature.
Indeed, it seems that the most promising permanent bonding technology for future applications based on 3D interconnect would certainly be metal bonding or Cu-Cu/oxide hybrid bonding performed at room temperature. Every major player nowadays is working on the implementation and qualification of this technology for the new generation of BSI CIS and for 3D Stack TSV. However, there are still several challenges associated with this emerging permanent bonding process integration related to its reliability at room temperature. Some work remains to be done to achieve good enough performance for production.
Electrical and mechanical properties will be the key to compete successfully with other permanent bonding technologies in the 3D Stack TSV market.
This report delivers a detailed 5-year forecast of the permanent bonding market divided by permanent bonding technology:
- fusion, anodic, glass frit, adhesive, metal bonding including eutectic, Transit Liquid Phase, thermo-compression, Cu-Cu/oxide hybrid @ room temperature bonding
In addition, it includes insights on a number of permanent bonding tools, breakdowns by wafer size & revenue, by type of permanent bonding technology, and applications. Permanent bonding market forecasts are calculated for 2013-2019.
KEY FEATURES OF THE REPORT
- Permanent bonding market metrics (wpsy, units and value)
- Breakdown by wafer size
- Complete competitive analysis of the key permanent bonding equipment suppliers with in-depth profiles of the main equipment vendors
- Market share of each major equipment supplier
- Overview of the different permanent bonding technologies
- Key technical insights and detailed analysis on all permanent bonding technologies, trends, & challenges
- Detailed analysis on the applications using permanent bonding technologies
- Detailed information on established and emerging permanent bonding process steps
OBJECTIVES OF THE REPORT
Objectives of the report are to provide:
- Market data on key permanent bonding technologies market metrics & dynamics
- Key technical insight into future permanent bonding technology trends and challenges
- A review of technical characteristics and challenges for each existing permanent bonding process
- An overview of the technological trends and applications that use permanent bonding processes
- A forecast for the next five years, and predict future trends for permanent bonding
- Forecast 2013-2019 in number of wafers, number of chambers, value in $M by application, and by permanent bonding technology
COMPANIES CITED IN THE REPORT (non-exhaustive list)
AMD, AML, Applied Materials, Avago, Bosch, Discera, EVG, Infineon, InvenSense, Lemoptix, Luxtera, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Murata / VTI, Nemotek, OSRAM, PlanOptik, Samsung, Sensonor, Silicon Labs, SOITEC, STMicroelectronics, SUSS MicroTec, Sony, Teledyne DALSA, Tokyo Electron, Ziptronix, IMEC, Leti, Texas Instruments, Tezzaron, WiSpry, Ziptronix, and more"¦
