Other 3Ds: HIDING DIES/HERMES projects update

Tuesday’s post, which referenced the Fraunhofer IZM’s work in embedded die technologies to achieve 3D packages, reminded me that I hadn't seen much in the news about it since the announcement of HERMES partnership with Flip Chip International last July, following the launch of FCI’s Embeddable Die Customization (EDC) technology. HERMES is the follow-on project to HIDING DIES, and is focused on the industrialization of embedded die processes. The goal was for FCI’s technology to provide part of the infrastructure that would help take HIDING DIES from the development stage to high-volume production. With HERMES’ one-year anniversary coming up in May, I decided it was more than time to weigh in on the progress.


Here’s what I learned. In October, Lars Boettcher, Dionysios Manessis, Andreas Ostmann Stefan Karaszkiewicz and Herbert Reichl, members of the HERMES project research team, received the 2008 Outstanding Paper Award at the 3rd IMPACT and 10th EMAP Joint Conference in Taipei, Taiwan for “Embedding of Chips for System in Package Realization – Technology and Applications”.

In addition to offering an overview of the generic chip-in-polymer technology, the paper discusses development of the technology further to realize 3D SiPs, and new challenges that must now be addresses as a result. According to the paper, a related goal of the HERMES project is to unearth and address these challenges, and once they are validated at prototype level, to develop a business model that would merge PCB and component manufacturing lines to produce these high-density devices at low-cost.

It appears that the team is ready to tell the next chapter in the story at IMAPS Device Packaging Symposium, on Thursday, March 12, from 9-9:30am. If you’re interested in following this progress, be sure put “Chip Embedding Technology – New Technological Challenges for a Reliable System-in-Package Realization" on your technical agenda. Somebody save me a seat up front. - F.v.T.