Recent developments in hole formations in glass, metalizations in the holes, and glass to glass sealing are enabling a new generation of designs to achieve higher performance while leveraging a wafer level packaging approach for low cost packaging solutions. The need for optical transparency, smoother surfaces, hermetic vias, and a reliable platform for multiple semiconductors is growing in the areas of MEMS, Biometric Sensors, Medical, Life Sciences, and Micro Display packaging.
This paper will discuss the types of glass suitable for packaging needs, hole creation methods and key specifications required for through glass vias (TGV's). Creating redistribution layers (RDL) or circuit layers on both sides of large thin glass wafer poses several challenges, which this paper will discuss, as well as, performance and reliability of the circuit layers on TGV wafers or substrates. Additionally, there are glass-to-glass welding techniques that can be utilized in conjunction with TGV wafers with RDL, which provide ambient glass-to-glass attachments of lids and standoffs, which do not outgas during thermal cycle and allow the semiconductor devices to be attached first without having to reflow at lower temperatures. Fabrication challenges, reliability testing results, and performance of this semiconductor packaging system will be discussed in this paper.
