Electronic Packaging Science and Technology

6Essence of Integrated Circuits and Packaging Design

6.1 Introduction

In this chapter, we introduce first the essentials for integrated circuits (ICs) and package designs for modern electronics products. Next, we describe the basic elements in IC and package scaling during the past development, and how they integrate. Then, many integrations and design styles will be reviewed, including SoC and multicore trends in IC designs; SiP and CoWoS, InFO in packaging. At the end, we summarize the current status of “More than Moore” 3D IC and the near‐future electronics design integration.

ICs did not have a long history. Before ICs appeared, people have used vacuum tubes for electronic devices such as radios and radars. When transistors appeared, dramatic changes occurred. In 1946, Shockley at Bell Labs has proposed to develop semiconductors, and next year (1947), the transistor was created by him, Bardeen, and Brattain. They received the Nobel Prize in 1956. Then, the next key invention came in 1959 from Hoerni at Fairchild when the “planar” manufacturing process was realized. At the same time, Kilby at Texas Instruments and Noyce at Fairchild invented the IC based on the planar finding [1]. IC was recognized as a breakthrough for fabricating many transistors together on one plane. Furthermore, very thin metal lines can be deposited on the oxidized devices in order to connect all transistors, making all components to work in one production. Due to the arguments in the planar finding, ...