2.5D / 3D IC Landscape: Market and Technology Trends

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The semiconductor industry is facing a new era in which device scaling and cost reduction will not continue on the path they followed for the past few decades, with Moore's law in its foundation. Advanced nodes do not bring the desired cost benefit anymore and R&D investments in new lithography solutions and devices below 10nm nodes are rising substantially. In order to answer market demands, the industry seeks further performance and functionality boosts in integration. While scaling options remain uncertain and continue to be investigated, the spotlight is turning to advanced packages. Emerging packages such as fan-out wafer level packages and 2.5D / 3D IC solutions together with upgraded flip chip BGAs aim to revive the cost/performance curve and extend both scaling and functionality roadmaps. Future packages need to tackle the explosion in information exchange translating to high number of I/Os and be able to support heterogeneous integration. This puts particular pressure on die to board interconnects. Technologies to fill the void created in diverging PCB versus IC feature sizes are constantly under development. Three-dimensional (3D) technology using the well-known Through Silicon Via (TSV) interconnect, considered today the most advanced technology, is one emerging option that aims to enable heterogeneous integration. Such a technology is not limited to CMOS scaling in itself, it is rather based on bringing more functionality by stacking different type of devices (Logic, Memory, Analog, MEMS, Passive components…) while reducing the package form factor. This functional diversification is also known as More-than-Moore. This work focuses on the analysis of recent developments and future trends of the 2.5D / 3D IC landscape. What's new since last year? TSV technology has already been utilized for several years within the MEMS and CMOS image sensor (CIS) market, but the news is that it finally seems to be happening within the logic and memory domain. Latest products such as AMD Radeon R9 Fury with its 2.5D configuration including HBM stacks and Samsung 3D TSV stacked DRAM, among others, aim for high volume. Fueled by consumer applications such as smartphones and tablets, the MEMS and CIS markets are expected to exhibit continuous growth over the next several years, while in the high-end market, driven by the need for further performance increase, volatile memory and especially DRAM are finally opening the doors of 2.5D / 3D IC commercial adoption. This analysis will cover 2.5D interposer & 3DIC platforms as well as MEMS and CIS TSV packaging. Market forecasts in terms of wafer starts, market revenue, application segments and end-products will be presented. Furthermore, supply chain activities and major player interactions will be analyzed and 3D integration technology roadmaps will be reviewed. In conclusion, this study will aim at providing comprehensive insight into 2.5D / 3D IC market and technology trends.