Wafer-level packaging (WLP) is a process where

packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a co ...

components are attached to an

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

(IC) ''before'' the

wafer A wafer is a crisp, often sweet, very thin, flat, light and dry biscuit, often used to decorate ice cream, and also used as a garnish on some sweet dishes. Wafers can also be made into cookies with cream flavoring sandwiched between them. They ...

– on which the IC is fabricated – is

diced Dicing is a culinary knife cut in which the food item is cut into small blocks or dice. This may be done for aesthetic reasons or to create uniformly sized pieces to ensure even cooking. Dicing allows for distribution of flavour and texture ...

. In WSP, the top and bottom layers of the packaging and the solder bumps are attached to the integrated circuits while they are still in the wafer. This process differs from a conventional process, in which the wafer is sliced into individual circuits (dice) before the packaging components are attached. WLP is essentially a true

chip-scale package A chip scale package or chip-scale package (CSP) is a type of integrated circuit package. Originally, CSP was the acronym for ''chip-size packaging.'' Since only a few packages are chip size, the meaning of the acronym was adapted to ''chip-scal ...

(CSP) technology, since the resulting package is practically of the same size as the die. Wafer-level packaging allows integration of wafer fab, packaging, test, and burn-in at wafer level in order to streamline the manufacturing process undergone by a device from silicon start to customer shipment. There is no single industry-standard method of wafer-level packaging at present. A major application area of WLPs are

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s due to the size constraints. For example, the Apple iPhone 5 has at least eleven different WLPs, the Samsung Galaxy S3 has six WLPs and the HTC One X has seven. Functions provided WLPs in smartphones include sensors, power management, wireless, etc. In fact, it has recently been rumored that the iPhone 7 will use

fan-out wafer-level packaging Fan-out wafer-level packaging (also known as wafer-level fan-out packaging, fan-out WLP, FOWL packaging, FO-WLP, FOWLP, etc.) is an integrated circuit packaging technology, and an enhancement of standard wafer-level packaging (WLP) solutions. In c ...

technology in order to achieve a thinner and lighter model. CCD_Sensor_(20160615266)

Wafer-level chip scale packaging (WL-CSP) is the smallest package currently available on the market and is produced by OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) companies, such as Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE). A WL-CSP or WLCSP package is just a bare

die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

with a redistribution layer (RDL, interposer or I/O pitch) to rearrange the pins or contacts on the die so that they can be big enough and have sufficient spacing so that they can be handled just like a

ball grid array A ball grid array (BGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging (a chip carrier) used for integrated circuits. BGA packages are used to permanently mount devices such as microprocessors. A BGA can provide more interconnection pins than can be p ...

(BGA) package. There are two kinds of wafer level packaging: fan-in and fan-out. Fan-in WLCSP packages have an interposer that is the same size as that of the die, where as fan-out WLCSP packages have an interposer that is larger than the die, similar to conventional BGA packages, the difference being that the interposer is built directly atop the die, instead of the die being attached to it and reflowed using the flip chip method. This is also true in fan-in WLSCP packages. In both cases, the die with its interposer may be covered in encapsulating material such as

epoxy Epoxy is the family of basic components or cured end products of epoxy resins. Epoxy resins, also known as polyepoxides, are a class of reactive prepolymers and polymers which contain epoxide groups. The epoxide functional group is also coll ...

. In February 2015, it was discovered that a WL-CSP chip in the Raspberry Pi 2 had issues with

xenon flash A flashtube (flashlamp) is an electric arc lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for a very short time. A flashtube is a glass tube with an electrode at each end and is filled with a gas that, when tr ...

es (or any other bright flashes of longwave light), inducing the

photoelectric effect The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, and solid st ...

within the chip.By Leon Spencer, ZDNet. �
Raspberry Pi 2 power crashes when exposed to xenon flash
” February 9, 2015. Retrieved February 5, 2016. Thus, careful consideration concerning exposure to extremely bright light will need to be given with wafer-level packaging.

See also

References

Further reading