Self-Assembly and Self-Tiling: Integrating Active Dies Across Length Scales on Flexible Substrates

This paper reports on recent progress in the field of directed self-assembly, wherein discrete inorganic semiconductor device components are assembled on flexible substrates, and compares these results with prior work. The research aims to develop self-assembly-based chiplet assembly processes that can extend minimal die sizes and throughput beyond what is currently possible with robotic pick and place methods. This manuscript concentrates on self-assembly that is driven by the reduction of surface free energy between liquid solder-coated areas on a substrate and metal-coated contacts on semiconductor dies that act as binding sites. Scaling prior results to sub-100 micrometer-sized components has required a transition to a new self-assembly platform. Specifically, recent work has moved from a drum delivery concept to a new scheme that uses a stepwise reduction of interfacial free energy at a triple interface between oil, water, and a penetrating solder-patterned substrate to introduce components. Finally, this paper also discusses design rules to produce highly periodic “self-tiled” domains on rigid, flexible, and curved substrates. We describe discrete, self-tiled, and microconcentrator-augmented solar cell modules as applications that are fault tolerant and reduce the amount of Si material used by up to a factor of 22 when compared to conventional cells.