A comprehensive overview on today's ceramic substrate technologies

Ceramic packaging solutions offer superior reliability performance compared to all organic technologies and are only a fraction of the development cost required for monolithic semiconductor integration. System in package integration capabilities, thermal management, temperature resistivity and heterogeneous system integration (matching different TCE's) are the driving forces for the utilisation of ceramic substrate technologies in microelectronics. This presentation gives a wide and comprehensive overview of today's ceramic substrate technologies used in microelectronic packaging. It deals with double sided and multilayer ceramics, with low temperature and high temperature manufacturing processes and different material systems. The current state of the art is described by an overview of the main technical and economical characteristics, relevant market sections and the driving forces of these markets to use ceramic substrates. Typical applications, manufactured in volumes for the actual market will be presented to highlight the key benefits for the technology chosen. The focus of the contribution will be on advanced ceramic technologies and LTCC in particular. LTCC material systems, widely used in the automotive and the telecommunication business, will be highlighted and some market penetrating applications as well as low volume applications in the field of sensors will be presented to demonstrate the advantages of ceramic multilayer substrates. An overview of European sources and market shares will complete the picture of the current state of ceramic substrate technologies. Future market needs, technical trends and actual developments in current R&D programmes will be reviewed. This will show perspectives and challenges for the use of ceramic substrate technologies in new applications and emerging markets like MEMS, Biosensors, MOEMS and others.