Process and Material Requirements for Successful Heterogonous Passive Component Integration in RF System
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0969-W02-02-V01-02
Process and Material Requirements for Successful Heterogonous Passive Component Integration in RF System Eric Beyne, Walter De Raedt, Geert Carchon, and Philippe Soussan IMEC, Kapeldreef 75, Leuven, 3001, Belgium
ABSTRACT Applications using rf radios operating at frequencies above 1GHz are proliferating. The highest operating frequencies continue to increase and applications above 10GHz and up to 77GHz are already emerging. Systems become more complex and devices need to operate at several different frequency bands using different wireless standards. The rf-front end sections of these devices are characterized by a high diversity of components, in particular high precision passive components. In order to be produced cost-effectively, these elements need to be integrated along with the semiconductor devices. This paper describes the requirements for successful integration of rf-passive devices and proposes multilayer thin film technology as an effective rf-integration technology. INTRODUCTION As wireless communication devices are becoming ever more abundant in numbers and variety, high density system integration is becoming an increasingly important requirement. High density integration of rf-radio devices not only requires the integration of the active devices (rfsystem-on-chip, rf-SOC), it also requires the integration of a large number of passive devices, such as transmission lines, resistors, capacitors and inductors, as well as functional blocs such as filters and baluns. In order to reduce the system size, as well as the system cost, a higher degree of miniaturisation is required. These components do not scale as well active IC-technology, making it difficult to integrate all these devices on-chip. Therefore; a proper portioning of the rf system is required. The active devices may be integrated in one or two SOC devices and the external passive devices should be integrated in the SOC package, effectively realizing an rfSystem-in-a-Package, rf-SIP. This is illustrated in figure 1. A key enabling technology for the realization of these rf-SIP ‘interposer’ substrates with integrated passives is the multilayer thin film technology as used for wafer-level-packaging, WLP, of device wafers (redistribution and bumping). A key feature of this technology is the use of photo-lithographic technology for the definition of the various passive circuit components, resulting in a high degree in miniaturization and high patterning accuracy, with tolerances in the µm and sub-µm ranges. This results in an excellent circuit repeatability and predictability, key ingredients for the realization of first-time right and high manufacturing yield devices. As transistor dimensions scale down and CMOS and SiGe are increasingly replacing GaAs for microwave and mm-wave applications, circuit performance becomes increasingly determined by the on-chip passive component quality. However, in the attempt to pace up with this evolution, thinner on-chip metals and dielectrics have a troubling effect on the Q factor of on-chip pa
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