Platform technology for form factor equivalent microsystems derived from COTS components

Recent years have shown the tremendous growth of electronic use in medical devices. Especially active implants and hearing aids have driven that trend to today´s ultra-small devices embedded into the body. While the integrated circuits´ features a ever-decreasing critical geometries and surging performance numbers, the delivery format of such advanced chips is seldom providing the engineering teams with a fully tested, bare die. Miniature implanted devices are hindered in their proliferation by the use of COTS devices, which fail to meet the miniaturization requirements, while on the other hand a dedicated chip run or the procurement of a KGD tested bare die is often cost prohibitive for single and multi chip devices. This paper describes a miniaturization approach using advanced packaging techniques for the electronic system using the example of a miniature camera system (bare die assembly in stack-wirebond and flip chip) suitable for medical imaging. For prototypes, some electronic bare dice are mimicked by de-capsulating the IC from the plastic housing and re-bumping it for use as flip chip. This prototype platform allows to create form factor equivalent circuits with known good chips enabling the demonstration and qualification of miniature devices. In addition, the approach can be used to create 3D stacked systems - this approach is depicted as well.