$1.4bn boost for US advanced packaging

The US Department of Commerce has announced $1.4bn for three projects and an Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Programme (NAPMP).

This is intended to establish a self-sustaining, high-volume, domestic, advanced packaging industry where advanced node chips are both manufactured and packaged in the United States.   

There is a total of $300m for Absolics, Applied Materials and Arizona State University for several substrate projects, while there is $1.1bn for advanced packaging capabilities at the Prototyping and NAPMP Advanced Packaging Piloting Facility (PPF).

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“Bolstering our advanced packaging capabilities is key to America remaining a global leader in leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “These investments and CHIPS research and development flagship facilities will strengthen our end-to-end semiconductor ecosystem and help close the gap between invention and commercialization to ensure the United States is a global leader in semiconductor innovation and manufacturing.” 

Absolics in Covington, Georgia, sees a boost from $75m to $100 million in direct funding for glass packing as part of its Substrate and Materials Advanced Research and Technology (SMART) Packaging Programme. The glass substrates will be used as an important advanced packaging technology to increase the performance of leading-edge chips for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance compute and data centres by reducing power consumption and system complexity.

Applied Materials in Santa Clara, California also sees $100m to develop and scale a silicon-core substrate technology for next-generation advanced packaging and 3D heterogeneous integration.

THe third project, also with $100m, will see Arizona State University develop the next generation of microelectronics packaging through fan-out-wafer-level-processing (FOWLP). Based at the ASU Advanced Electronics and Photonics Core Facility, the project will explore the commercial viability of 300 mm wafer-level and 600 mm panel-level manufacturing, a technology that does not exist as a commercial capability in the US today.

Natcast’s Advanced Packaging Facility, also in Tempe, Arizona, will see $1.1bn to set up a baseline advanced packaging piloting line to enable the development and commercialization of advanced packaging processes. This aims to enable researchers and industry leaders to develop and test new materials, devices, and advanced packaging.