Shipping and Handling Multi-binned IC’s
The R&D department of one of the largest global semiconductor companies,specializing in a broad range of analog and digital connectivity products was experiencing high levels of scrap and low yields when shipping several of its IC chip products. They shipped multi-binned IC’s that ranged in size from 1x1mm up to 10x10mm with thickness dimensions of 100µm to 525µm. The company had an aggressive product iteration schedule and was constantly introducing new chip designs of various sizes that were ultimately used for transceivers.
The customer had been using waffle pack products to ship its IC’s and realized their yield issue was due to chips moving around within or migrating outside the waffle pack pockets. The waffle pack product requires that each tray has a customized pocket size to accommodate the different chip sizes.The company had been using the wrong pocket sizes which resulted in the damage they were seeing to their devices.
The customer approached Gel-Pak to provide an alternate solution that would eliminate the device damage and improve their yields.
Challenges:
- The customer was experiencing yield loss and damage to their devices because the IC’s were moving around within and migrating outside of waffle pack pockets. They were experiencing up to 60% scrap rate.
- The customer’s R&D center was constantly iterating their chip designs and produced devices of various sizes and dimensions. They could not afford the long lead times and high MOQ costs associated with ordering waffle packs with custom pocket sizes.
- The company was also experiencing contamination issues from the waffle pack and needed to add an additional cleaning step to their process. Together all of this had an effect on their time to market.
Gel-Pak Solution:
Gel-Pak presented the customer with its Vacuum Release Carrier products. These “pocketless” trays serve as a universal carrier to accommodate the variety of device sizes produced by their R&D facility.
Gel-Pak provided samples of VR-44/16CC- 00B-XT, VR-44/33CC- 00B-XT, VR-44/76CC- 00B-XT which securely held their devices in place during shipping and handling, protecting them from damage.
Multi-binned IC''s