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How to alleviate the problem of outdated electronic components?
How to alleviate the problem of outdated electronic components?
Author：netwing Time：2024-05-06 Number Of Views：
When evaluating the long-term supply risks associated with product selection, we must be aware that the part number information provided by original component manufacturers (OCMs) covers a range far beyond what can be covered by the Bill of Materials (BOM) health reports provided by commercial tools.
If the chip is viewed as a complete "puzzle", this "puzzle" is composed of many small "puzzle blocks", each of which is crucial. Once a problem occurs, it may lead to the entire product becoming outdated. These "puzzle pieces" are diverse and cover various sub parts from business revenue to semiconductor products, such as foundry technology, packaging methods, substrate or lead frame selection, testing platforms, and design resources.
In addition, these "puzzle pieces" also include the overall strategic direction or market focus of semiconductor companies. Over time, the market focus of semiconductor companies may change, but for systems companies that have long-term partnerships (such as customers), their product focus may not easily change. Therefore, when evaluating the long-term supply risks associated with product selection, we must be aware that the part number information provided by original component manufacturers (OCMs) covers a range far beyond the scope of the Bill of Materials (BOM) health reports provided by commercial tools.
How does the manufacturing supply chain affect the long-term availability of products?
Most traditional semiconductor products adopt lead frame packaging forms, such as DIP, PLCC, QFP, and PGA. Nowadays, the semiconductor market no longer regards lead frame packaging as the main production driver, but gradually shifts towards substrate based assembly methods.
The reason why the industry is gradually abandoning the installation of lead frame components
To gain a deeper understanding of the reasons for the gradual disappearance of lead frame components, we need to conduct a comprehensive examination from various aspects such as the history of the assembly base, changes in profit margins, and industry development trends.
As early as the 1980s, the trend of offshore outsourcing had quietly emerged. At that time, TSMC had not yet emerged in the semiconductor industry with its outstanding foundry technology. Overseas assembly is mainly driven by cost factors and also affected by environmental restrictions, as the assembly process at that time was not as clean as it is now. With the increasingly fierce industry competition, many lead frame suppliers are gradually being eliminated in the competition, and only the largest suppliers can barely maintain profitability. Nowadays, the profit margin of lead frames has dropped to single digits, while the profit margin of most semiconductor companies is close to 50%.
In the 1990s and early 21st century, driven by high-speed IO (input/output) and BGA (solder ball array packaging) assembly, the production of lead frame components reached a historic peak. However, with the emergence of high-speed IO standards such as PCI-e, multi gigabit Ethernet, SATA, SAS, etc., it has been found that traditional wire bonding technology has become a key factor limiting device performance - high-speed IO standards and other new standards have established clear performance roadmaps, but wire bonding technology is difficult to meet these performance requirements.
Meanwhile, with the significant increase in device speed, its power consumption also increases accordingly. Wire bonding distributes power from the outside of the chip to the core, but for high-performance products that became popular in the 1990s, relying solely on external power supply from the chip cannot meet the growing demand for electricity.
In order to solve this problem, flip chip and BGA packaging substrates have emerged. These technologies eliminate the dependence on wire bonding by directly supplying power to the core, effectively alleviating the challenge of power distribution. This scheme not only improves the efficiency of power transmission, but also achieves better signal integrity, enabling the device to meet the requirements of high-speed SerDes (serializer/deserializer) standards.
At the beginning of the 21st century, as the production of lead frame components gradually decreased, a new type of low pin packaging method - QFN packaging began to emerge. QFN packaging is a substrate based assembly method that uses wire bonding technology to connect chips to leads. The emergence of this packaging method marks the development of semiconductor packaging technology towards greater efficiency and advancement.
To this day, the production of substrate components has far exceeded that of lead frame components. Previously, trimming and molding tools were the most expensive lead frame processing equipment for packaging factories. As the production of lead frame components decreases, substrate based assembly methods have become mainstream. The conversion of packaging factories from lead frame assembly to substrate assembly requires the replacement of trimming and molding tools, and their profit margins are only in single digits, making it difficult to support their complete abandonment of lead frame components.
The reason why the industry chooses to abandon lead frame components is because the technical performance requires zero wire bonding, and the cost of continuing to produce low production lead frame components is too high. This is not only due to economic considerations, but also an inevitable result of technological progress.
Once the assembly plan is determined, the testing plan should also be adjusted immediately after it. We need to closely monitor similar development trends in testing techniques to ensure a smooth transition to substrate assembly testing. If there are issues with misalignment during substrate assembly testing, it may lead to the occurrence of technical backwardness. At present, the latest production testing equipment on the market mainly serves substrate based assembly, and all measures aimed at reducing batch production costs are mainly focused on substrate components.
However, it is worth noting that as production gradually decreases, OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Packaging and Testing) factories face increasing challenges in testing for small batch production. Especially in products based on lead frames, this challenge is particularly evident.
Merely acquiring the OSAT supply chain cannot meet the long-term needs of customers
Can a company provide customers with the same semiconductor product in the long term by acquiring only the existing OSAT supply chain, given sufficient wafer supply?
Rochester Electronics believes that this plan is only a short-term stopgap. Looking back at the "puzzle block" mentioned earlier, it includes all the steps from lead frame, assembly to testing. In the OSAT supply chain, once a link becomes economically unfeasible, it is likely to be eliminated. This is because no company that supports OSAT supply chain management can drive large-scale production of products, which increases the risk of technological obsolescence. Therefore, OSAT manufacturers cannot utilize the same level of product continuity as original component manufacturers (OCMs). In the short term, OSAT supply chain management may be able to maintain product production, but in the long run, this approach is not sustainable.
Collaborating with authorized semiconductor manufacturers can effectively reduce the risk of component obsolescence or discontinuation. When a certain component is discontinued, licensed manufacturers can continue to produce these components that are no longer supplied by OCM. At this point, OCM will transfer the remaining wafers, bare cores, assembly processes, and original testing intellectual property (IP) to authorized manufacturers. This means that even previously discontinued components can now be remanufactured and fully meet the original specifications. More conveniently, this collaboration method does not require additional qualification certification or software changes, greatly simplifying the production process.
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