Equipment for placement and bonding

Flip chip, ball grid array (BGA), and μ-BGA technology has been investigated by large and small European electronics companies, and the technology is already used in production by some. There are three major applications: (1) SMT compatible use of flip chip on printed boards; (2) flip chip technology for special applications where no other packaging can meet the requirements; (3) low cost flip chip technology. Assembly and bonding equipment is an important concern for all of these applications for the development of low-cost flip chip technology and bumping technology. However, the heavy cost of assembly and bonding equipment, and difficulties in finding systems which are flexible enough to cover the wide range of demands, are blocking the way for smaller, innovative companies. A modular flexible bonding workstation for a wide variety of flip chip applications is presented and explained in this paper. The workstation is based on a simple but very precise principle for optical face-down chip alignment. Special features realised as modular options enable this workstation to cover a wide range of different bonding processes with all parameters. The paper explains how to perform different bonding processes with the system