3D InCites Podcast

Europe’s Advanced Packaging: Progress, Players, And The Road Ahead

• Francoise von Trapp • Season 5 • Episode 29

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Fifty years of Semicon Europa set a fitting backdrop for a conversation that feels both celebratory and unsentimental about the state of advanced packaging in Europe. We walk the floor in Munich and pull together a story that spans chemical metrology, panel plating, glass substrates, thermal materials, logistics resilience, and the push from R&D to production—plus a heartfelt goodbye.

Dena Mitchell, Nova opens the curtain on chemical metrology for electroplating, showing how bath health drives TSV fill, hybrid bond grain structure, and environmental wins through longer bath life. Sally Ann Henry, ACM Research, explains why horizontal panel electroplating can deliver better uniformity than vertical as panel-level packaging grows. Thomas Uhrmann, EV Group zooms out to the strategy: Europe’s strength in pilot lines and research consortia, the urgency to materialize large-scale packaging fabs, and how the EU Chips Act is knitting packaging into every node from photonics to logic.

Henkel's Ram Trichur takes on thermals, from kilowatt-class data center processors with backside power delivery to mobile’s shift from package-on-package to side-by-side for exposed die cooling, and the heat challenges inside HBM stacks. Comet's Isabella Drolz steps into glass panel territory with TGV inspection at 610 x 610 mm, aligning tools, standards, and timelines toward late-decade ramps. Martin Wynaendts van Resandt explains how
Lab14 brings agility with direct-write lithography for large substrates and optical interconnect masters—speeding iteration and trimming mask overhead as co-packaged optics advances. Jim Garstka, Shellback Semiconductor, talks about its Hydrozone product that is finding traction in photo mask cleaning. 

We also get practical about moving all this innovation: Barry O'Dowd and Robin Knopf, of Kuehne+Nagel, detail how Europe’s packaging supply chains remain global, and how sea-air blends can cut cost and time for non-sensitive, high-volume flows while building resilience against disruptions. ASE's Patricia MacLeod, Christophe Zinck, and Bradford Factor tie it together with automotive realities—centralized compute, heterogeneous integration, reliability constraints—and the enduring role of MEMS and sensors to feed the brain of the car.

It’s a grounded, forward-looking journey through the technologies and decisions that will determine whether Europe turns its R&D leadership into production momentum. Listen for clear takeaways, candid perspectives, and a final toast to the community that made the 3D InCites Podcast possible.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review to help more listeners find it.

Support the show

Live From Semicon Europa: Opening

Francoise von Trapp

This episode of the 3D Insights Podcast is sponsored by SEMIEREP. SEMI-Europe is the European arm of SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, connecting more than 3,000 members and 1.3 million professionals worldwide. Learn more at semi.org slash EU.

SPEAKER_14

Hi there. I'm Francoise von Traff, and this is the 3D Insights Podcast.

Nova On Chemical Metrology For Plating

Francoise von Trapp

Hi everyone. Now this is the final episode of season five of the 3D Insights Podcast, and we're recording live from Semicon Europa, where we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Semicon Europa and also my swan song as I am retiring at the end of this year. In this episode, we'll be talking with some of our community members and reminiscing about Europa's past and present and what we can see in the future. So my first guest is from Nova, and her name is Dina Mitchell. Welcome to the podcast, Dina. Thank you. So before we dive in, can you just tell me a little bit about your background and your role at Nova?

SPEAKER_12

My name's Dina Mitchell. I am the vice president of product marketing for the Chemical Metrology Division. Sorry. Um at Nova. And I'm for myself. I've been in the semiconductor industry now for 30 years. So I've been knocking around for a while. Since the beginning. Since the beginning. Right out of college. A good portion of the 50 years of Semicon Europe. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

This is not your first rodeo, then. You've been to Semicon Europa before.

SPEAKER_12

Yes.

Francoise von Trapp

When was your first one?

SPEAKER_12

Probably five years ago. I was working in Munich and was able to come.

Francoise von Trapp

Were you at Nova at the time?

SPEAKER_12

Was not at Nova at the time. I was with uh Celtronic.

Francoise von Trapp

So tell me a little bit about advanced packaging in Europe. How are you seeing it expanding?

SPEAKER_12

Well, first I would say that uh the EU Chip Act is really helping it expand. It's uh driving investment and collaboration with companies, um, as well as we have a lot of institutions that are working actively in that space. So I think that's all good. And I think when we talk about advanced packaging, often we only talk about memory and logic. That's what the news is about, that's what the articles are about. But really it's gonna impact uh power devices as well. And when we think about integration in um automotive for self-driving cars and in industrial that need to package all the devices together and bring the latency down is is really critical. So advanced packaging is gonna And reduce power needs. And reduce power needs as well. Yeah. So I think uh the power devices are gonna come in as well, and that's of course a core competency here in Europe.

Francoise von Trapp

That's really interesting because I had a conversation uh last week with Rob Tricher from Henkel, okay, talking about power electronics and power semiconductors in a scenario. We haven't covered a whole lot of Canadian sites because most of the packaging involved at that point was still traditional packaging. We hadn't gotten into the advanced packaging site. So and and I think still, um, but yeah, there's a lot of opportunity there for the packaging space, I agree.

SPEAKER_12

And I think there's gonna be unique packaging needed for power, like silicon carbide. Um different materials.

Francoise von Trapp

Different materials.

SPEAKER_12

So it'll be interesting to see where that goes.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. So how is Nova participating in the advanced packaging in Europe?

SPEAKER_12

So Nova's uh invested heavily here in Europe recently. In 2022, there was the acquisition of Ancosyst, which now is the chemical metrology division, which I'm part of. Okay. And we do wet chemical metrology for electroplating tools specifically. And so that's going to be a lot in advanced packaging.

Francoise von Trapp

So is the metrology performed on the tools or on the chemicals?

SPEAKER_12

On the chemicals. So we pull from slip streams and do uh measurements of the concentration of the byproducts that are happening and overall the health of the bath.

Francoise von Trapp

Aaron Powell That's interesting. I never thought of metrology used in that way. Yeah. You usually hear about metrology um and surface, you know, like planar surfaces are looking for for defects.

SPEAKER_12

So our divisions, um we have two divisions that do dimensional metrology, more wafer level as you're speaking. Um and talking about Nova in Europe, they we earlier this year purchased Centronics, which does dimensional metrology. Okay. And they are unusual in and unique, I would say, in that they can handle any form functions. So wafer level, wafers in pan uh frames, panel level. Um so that places us really in the advanced packaging world with that uh tool. And then our third division, just to add it in, um, is our materials division that's in California.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay.

SPEAKER_12

And they do again more wafer level, inline uh materials metrology using X-ray, SIMS, Riemann.

Francoise von Trapp

Can you explain to me a little bit more about why we need metrology for the chemicals in the advanced packaging space?

SPEAKER_12

If the plating bath is healthy, then the plating is predictable. Okay. As as you can imagine. So uh if the plating chemistry is off, for example, the TSVs, if you're plating TSVs, might not feel right, you might end up with a void in the middle of a TSV. Or you might end up, if you're looking at hybrid copper bonding, you want the chemistry to be right so that the grain size is correct for when you want bond. Okay. Okay. Um so there's a lot of control of the chemicals that need to happen uh to make sure that that bath is healthy. Oh, that's really fascinating. Yeah. And then the third thing is kind of more of an environmental. If you can monitor the the bath and how it's doing, you know when to do what we call a bleed and feed, basically a a dump and a refill of So that's when you're looking for the at the byproducts. At the byproducts or any sort of contamination. And um if you're monitoring that, and the longer you can extend your bath life, of course it saves you money, cost of ownership, but it also is good better for the environment not having to use so many chemicals. So there's multiple reasons, I would say.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. And so how is the chemical metrology division of Nova engaged in Europe?

Why Bath Health Drives TSV And Hybrid Bonds

SPEAKER_12

Uh so first we have a pretty large installed base here with our customers, and um we continue to work with them on their needs and their um development. And often we ask to work on development of our own with them because right in our backyard, so it works out quite nicely. Um I think also there's an ecosystem around electroplating here. We're doing the metrology, the measurements, there's electroplating tool vendors here in Europe, and also strong presence of electroplating chemicals here. So we kind of make up an ecosystem that uh we're very engaged with. Okay. Um, as well as we're working with institutions here like Fraunhofer and and IMX. So were you based personally here in Europe? Yep. Yep, I'm lucky you. Yeah. One of the lone Americans in the in the office. And funny enough, the um head of marketing for California Division is German and lives in California, California and and I'm here, so it's that's part of a joke.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, well, thanks so much. Um is there a place people can go to learn more about NOVA?

SPEAKER_12

Yeah. Uh just look us up on the internet, uh Nova Measurements, and and we'll come up. And please do. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks so much. Thank you.

Francoise von Trapp

My next guest is Sally Ann Henry from ACM Research. Welcome back to the podcast, Sally Ann. Thank you, Francoise. And it was lovely to see you all last night and have some fun. That was a fun party, wasn't it? It was. So, for you know, full disclosure, I had a retirement party last night. Well, it was also our 3D Insights Stomptisch, and we had an Eistok Schiessen um competition, which is Eistockshiessen, is the German version of curling. So it's kind of like curling and botchy, because there's not we don't use those brushes. No, right? So, Sally Ann, congratulations. Your team won the silver medal. Wow, thank you. We were so good. You were so good. You beat us, we got third place. Yeah, well, what can I say? So this year we're celebrating 50 years of semicon Europa. So when was your first semicon Europa, Sally Ann? Ooh.

ACM’s Panel Plating And EU R&D Reality

SPEAKER_13

I go back to 1985, in March of 1985, in Geneva. Oh, okay. It was held in Geneva beginning of March for a few years, and then they switched it to Zurich. And then we went to Zurich for a few years. And the advantage, it was always in early March, and as a skier, you always arranged at the end of the week you would have a long weekend skiing somewhere in the French or the Swiss Alps. So it was a perfect ending to a semiconductor.

Francoise von Trapp

I remember my first was in Stuttgart, and it was a little bit earlier, so it was kind of on the heels of Oktoberfest. And we went to Oktoberfest in Munich before heading to Stuttgart. But Stuttgart was there for a couple years, I think. And then it started going back and forth between Grenoble and Dresden and Dresden. And I did not go those years at all. I was kind of in between. And then finally it came to Munich. It did. Yeah. So how do you think it's evolved at this point?

SPEAKER_13

It's evolved since I started in 85 there. I mean, it was a very small show. I mean, Lamb Research were very small, you know, KLA. All the big guys today were all small companies, all startups, and everybody had a little small booth. And of course, typical European style, you always had drinks Tuesday and Wednesday night. Right. Well, that hasn't changed.

Francoise von Trapp

That hasn't changed. That has it. That's one thing I know different between Semicon West and Semicon Europa is that I've already even noticed this morning there's food in everybody's booths, there's drinks in everybody's booth, and the beer starts early. And sometimes there's schnapps, and you really have to pace yourself. You have to pace yourself. Yes, the Europeans do know how to party. Oh, we do. Yes. So advanced packaging is becoming very important all over the world, and Europe is really investing in this space. What are you seeing from your perspective? Because you're based here, even though ACM is a US company. Your role is as chief technologist. Chief technologist, but you're based in VLOC. I'm based in VLOC, yes. Okay. So what are you seeing as far as uptake uh for your tools here?

SPEAKER_13

What we see here is is more it's RD rather than high volume manufacture. Uh so more RD, particularly with uh wafer, well not wafer level, but panel level packaging. I mean the Fraunhofer, a little bit of IMEC, a little bit of Letty, but it's all RD. And there doesn't seem to be a flow out to um maybe a high volume manufacturer other than possibly in France.

Francoise von Trapp

But hasn't that always been the way in Europe? We always said that the development was done here, the volume manufacturing was happening in Asia. You know, US was always big in the design space, but now everybody's trying to have their full ecosystem in their regions. And is Europe is investing some funding in their the EU Chips Act.

SPEAKER_13

The EU Chips Act is is investing money into small RD companies, um, also large ones like IMEC and and Letty and uh the Fraunhoffers. Um and more of more of the uh panel stuff has been done by the Fraunhofer. Are you part of that consortium? No, we're not. You have to be a European company. Oh, clever. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

I did not realize that. No, we're not.

SPEAKER_13

If we had an office here, yes, we could be, but we're not.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. So for for ACM's business in Europe, do you have a lot of customers here?

SPEAKER_13

We have a few customers, but not necessarily in the packaging area. Okay. They're in other areas. Okay. Um, so a lot of my concentration in the packaging area is in the US. Okay. But you get to live here. But I get to live here. That's fun. It is.

Horizontal vs Vertical Panel Plating

Francoise von Trapp

So I noticed some news came across my desk this morning. Uh ACM Research delivers first horizontal panel electroplating tool. So tell me a little bit about the difference between horizontal and vertical. Electroplating.

SPEAKER_13

So for electroplating, I mean, in the wafer, everybody does horizontal plating. When you go to panels, ACM is the only company doing horizontal panel plating. Why is that? Well, we have the patents. Oh, okay. That's clever. So we have the patents for that. And traditionally, our competitors, some of them were in the industry before us, were always doing vertical. Well, why would they do vertical? There's two issues. Uh if you're doing vertical, you can get more panels processed in less really state on a fab. However, the uniformity of vertical is not as good as horizontal because you're pulling that panel out and everything's kind of dripping to the bottom. So uniformity across the whole panel is not as uniform as you do with horizontal. And we have all the patents on horizontal plating, and we put the whole panel into the plating tank. Right. So and this is single panel. Single panel. Okay. Yes. All right. So um it's exciting that we've actually we have a tool in our demo lab, and we've now shipped the first one to uh very large customer for that you can't say.

Francoise von Trapp

I can't tell you, otherwise I have to kill you. This is true. I I'm I'm I've had death threats before. But uh anyhow, so this is gonna be a great show. We're here, it's the first day, and I'm so happy to talk to you. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, and wishing you all the best in your retirement. I hope to see you around. You might, you never know. In Arizona. Okay. Okay, we can play golf. On the golf course. On the golf course. Okay, thanks, Sally Ann. Thanks. My next guest is Thomas Orman from Eevee Group.

SPEAKER_07

Nice to be back on the podcast.

Francoise von Trapp

It's always good to have you, Thomas.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you.

Francoise von Trapp

And uh yeah, we just had a recent visit just a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, we were just chatting on Semicon West. I think that was the last one. It was a great show, by the way. It was a good show.

Francoise von Trapp

And they're hoping to bring it back to Phoenix again.

SPEAKER_07

I hope so too, yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

Maybe even next year. Yeah. That would be amazing. Wouldn't that be great?

SPEAKER_07

Yeah.

EV Group On Europe’s Packaging Gap

Francoise von Trapp

But here we are in Munich at Semicon Europa, the 50th anniversary of Semicon Europa. And I know Evie Group has been here for all of those years, probably. If they're are we 50?

SPEAKER_07

Ah, so we are getting close to 50, but so it's not not since the beginning that we are here.

Francoise von Trapp

So what about your first semicon Europa?

SPEAKER_07

Actually, I think that was back in Driston when we were still at uh it was still basically in the venue in Drisden. And uh since that time it changed a lot, right? So it was a rather small show at the time.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, so I wasn't at that one. No, no, I went to 2007, 2008 in Stuttgart, and it was getting smaller. Yeah, there was kind of this time period of time where it had done really well and then it was getting smaller, and then they moved it and they did alternating between Grenoble and Dresden.

SPEAKER_07

Exactly, yes, yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

And then it came here.

SPEAKER_07

Which was a great decision, by the way, right? So now with Proctronica and Electronica together, it's an amazing show, right? So it it becomes bigger and bigger every year, yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So alternating years Protoctronica and Electronica, which which year do you think is better for e for semicon Europa?

SPEAKER_07

I think for the Semicon it's Productronica, to be honest. Electronica, it's a whole different style of uh of visitors that you have, right? So it's much bigger as well.

Francoise von Trapp

So there's more synergies between the attendees of Productronica? Absolutely. So even though Electronica is huge, this is the one where you might have visitors.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, it's more production people that are on the floor, more meetings in that direction. Uh it's a little bit less busy, so for the people, it's easier to come around and yeah, it's it's a very good show. Either yes, yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So but so how do you think uh the um advanced packaging ch landscape is changing in Europe these days?

SPEAKER_07

It's it's an interesting question, right? Because essentially the advanced packaging landscape is changing everywhere, right? So if you if you look also to the US, there is a lot of ongoing restoring, uh well, a lot of people expanding. And the interesting part is it just puts you back and and and shows you how important packaging is becoming in these recent years, right? So it's not all about front-end, front-end scaling, but basically there is a lot of value in the packaging, which is realized right now. Um the big challenge is actually for Europe, right? How to get that basically back and materialize on packaging because we do have a lot, right? In in Europe, it's great developments that are done by the by the research sites, uh, so all of them together, they're they're pushing packaging worldwide forward with new ideas. And then it's all about the materialization, how you actually get back the industry into Europe, right? But uh that needs use cases in and mainly from the main industries. If you look on automotive power and so on, so there are many synergies. But the materialization into really rather big fabs is still missing. Yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So in terms of onshoring, are there yet any OSATs here in Europe?

SPEAKER_07

I mean, with with NANU at the time and AMCOR, right? So Portugal, I think they are very well set. Uh in terms of the development lines, we are very well set. And then it's not that there is no packaging, right? But it's more a packaging per company, right? And while they're doing a lot of development, some production, but then typically the production is then or offshore towards uh towards Asia. But I think that is a trend that we can anticipate is coming back.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. How much is uh the EU Chips Act contributing to the advanced packaging side?

EU Chips Act And Pilot Lines

SPEAKER_07

Actually, so they're rather large programs, how they dissected it, right? So it's always when you look at the programs, it's um it's all about pilot lines, yeah. So how to establish pilot lines where there is a push towards more aggressive nodes in some cases or photonics, compound semiconductors. But then to every program there is basically a very good and an innovative part and packaging tied towards it, right? No matter no matter if it's more on the die-to-way for wafer to wafer side, it doesn't really matter. Um but I think that the core and the strength of packaging and the role of packaging is also realized in the cheapsect, which is a very good thing.

Francoise von Trapp

That is a good thing. Um how what is EV Group's role advancing advanced packaging in Europe?

SPEAKER_07

Well, we see ourselves, you know, we are very innovative as a company, right? Always have been. Uh sometimes even a little bit. Before the time that the industry really picked it up, right? So if you resemble on the first times of TSVs, there were conferences that we were attending in the very early days, like fifteen years ago. Right. And uh well, really in mass production, some of the technologies just hit like seven, eight years ago, right? So and that that is really kind of where from from a EVG side where we're always bringing up innovations into the market. And I think one of the most recent additions is, for example, if you look at mouse-place lithography, digitalizing the industry. Um but that's not all. So also in the carrier technology, we have recently launched layer release, which is uh complete revolution of the industry where you have carrier technology not just in back end, but uh you can also materialize it in front end technologies and have carriers in front end, which is completely a novelity, right? And that's always you know, this is always these uh technologies that we are developing over years sometimes. It takes a while for another.

Henkel’s Thermal Materials For AI And Mobile

Francoise von Trapp

That's one thing I've learned in this industry when I was new. I would have these conversations and they would talk about these innovations, and I would expect that the next year that was going to be in production. And it took me a while to figure out that these things take a long time before they're adopted. But you know, Eevee Group was one of the early innovators in the advanced packaging space and waiver double packaging, much before um a lot of other companies. And so that's one of the reasons why Eevee Group has always been involved with 3D Insights since our early days. Eevee Group has been one of our biggest supporters. In fact, I brought with me um a piece of swag that I picked up at my very first semiconductoropa, which I can't believe I haven't brought it every year because it is the most useful piece of swag, which it's a cross-body bottle holder for beer bottles. And it made, I think you can also use it for wine glasses. I haven't tested that out yet, but it leaves you hands-free for food.

SPEAKER_07

Yes.

Francoise von Trapp

So I and every year I'm like, why did I and I found it. I dug it out of um my storage and said, I'm bringing it this year because it reminded me of my very first one.

SPEAKER_07

Probably after this podcast, we have to revive that get a little bit more.

Francoise von Trapp

I think you do, absolutely. I think it's a a high hot item. And uh yeah, I don't know if it was originally for water bottles. I guess not, you know, but the neck of it is too small for today's like bigger, you know, fill your own water bottles. I don't know.

SPEAKER_07

It must be for beer.

Francoise von Trapp

It is, it is definitely destined for beer. So we will see you then at the booth party.

SPEAKER_07

Absolutely. Yes, looking forward to that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Francoise von Trapp

Well, it's always a pleasure to talk with you, and hopefully, even though this is my last semicon Europa, we'll have a chance to meet again.

SPEAKER_07

A couple of more semicons. I hope that we get the chance again to talk, but it was a pleasure. For years it was a pleasure, and it was an awesome job that you have done to well bring 3D into the industry, and that was a very important contribution. Thank you very much, Francois.

Francoise von Trapp

Thank you. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. We'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_07

We'll talk soon, thank you.

Francoise von Trapp

My next guest is Rom Tricher from Hankel. Welcome to the podcast, Rom.

SPEAKER_09

Hi Francoise, thanks for having me again.

Francoise von Trapp

Didn't we just talk the other day?

SPEAKER_09

Hey, we met the other day or the last night uh at your Stampish event.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah, on the podcast. We just talked on the podcast. That is right.

SPEAKER_09

We had a 30-minute podcast interview two weeks ago. Yes.

Francoise von Trapp

So, but we still have stuff to talk about.

SPEAKER_09

A lot.

Francoise von Trapp

Like, um, here we are at Semicon Europa. And which number Semicon Europa is this for you?

SPEAKER_09

Mine? When was your first one? My first one was um maybe 2011, if I remember correctly.

Francoise von Trapp

Do you remember where it was?

SPEAKER_09

Hey, wasn't it always in Munich? No.

Francoise von Trapp

No.

SPEAKER_09

Where was it?

Francoise von Trapp

No, there was in for a while it was in Grenoble on Dresden, Alter.

SPEAKER_09

Oh, that's right. Yeah, it was one of those two cities.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah, and I think it moved here in 2017 and was co-located, is now co-located with Productronica.

SPEAKER_09

I remember when it was very small. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Uh I remember catching a mountain flight or a train to a mountain and then ending the show. So yeah, not in Munich. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

Well, it's much bigger now that it's co-located with Proctronica or Electronica alternate years.

SPEAKER_09

That is right. Yeah, I mean, it's surprising. Uh because I came here in 2022 and um I stuck to the semiconductor portion of the event, so semicon. And this is the first time I'm stepping into the Productronica part, and yeah, it's uh a lot more packed, a lot of action.

Francoise von Trapp

Isn't it different in the Productronica side? There the booths are bigger.

SPEAKER_09

Much bigger, much more spaced out.

Francoise von Trapp

The T there's a lot of tools here. There's a lot. Yeah, now you're here with a materials booth, so but this is a big booth.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, yeah. So now we're co-locating this booth with three of the uh Henkel's businesses for mobility electronics and also for industrial electronics. And uh I'm here uh presenting semiconductor packaging. Yeah, so three SBUs all together in one booth.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, and so last night we had a fun party.

SPEAKER_09

Oh, that was great. What a great party.

Francoise von Trapp

You are on my team.

SPEAKER_09

And we won third prize. Third price. Hey, but the bronze is as good as the gold. Uh better than that.

Francoise von Trapp

I think you could just tell people that it was a gold medal, nobody would know the difference. Yeah, we had to be. So we were talking about ice dock shissen, which is a form of curling, but it's also like curling combined with maybe shuffleboard or or bocce.

SPEAKER_09

That's right. Right? It's like bocce with curling.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah, yeah, but there's no like little brushes to sweep off the ice.

SPEAKER_09

It was a heavy puck or the heavy throwing part. Right, right.

Francoise von Trapp

It was like um, yeah, like the big stone that you throw. It was fun.

SPEAKER_09

It was a lot of fun. My first time, it was a it was a blast. Uh I think it was a lot of fun the whole night.

Francoise von Trapp

I'm glad you could make it.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Francoise von Trapp

So you're giving a presentation at tomorrow's advanced packaging conference.

SPEAKER_09

That is correct. I'm giving a presentation about our thermal materials uh or how to address thermal challenges in semiconductor packaging. You know, that's the core of the talk.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah. So Gillian and I were just talking about how when we get stuck in our knowledge, all we have to do is ask, so how does that handle thermal? What's going on with thermal? Right? Because thermal, thermal or test?

SPEAKER_09

Exactly. Thermal test, oh, stress management.

Francoise von Trapp

Right.

SPEAKER_09

Oh, how to manage yields. Hey, these are basic questions you can always ask.

Francoise von Trapp

Right. Um, from a materials perspective, how can you support the thermal needs for today's high performance semiconductor devices?

Comet Joins Glass Panel Consortium

SPEAKER_09

That's right. So thermal is a continuous challenge uh for us, um, both from a data center device perspective, which means the processor and the memories used in the data center, and also for the uh mobile and edge. Uh, if you take AI PCs or your mobile phones, we have the mobile processor. All of these have thermal challenges. So in tomorrow's talk, I'm actually presenting a few use cases going through a how does thermal manifest in a data center processor, how does it manifest in a memory device, how does it manifest in an application processor, and what does Henkel do to uh solve all these challenges? So that's the storyline.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. And so can you give me the punchline?

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, I can. So if you take a data center processor, right now the power that's consumed is about thousand watts and it's moving 5x out, you know. And the size of the processor is increasing uh greater than uh 8x, 12x reticle size, the power is increasing 5x. So if you don't address how uh thermals are dissipated, you're not gonna have a reliable processor. So if you take the processor, one of the architecture changes that's happening is uh voltage regulation. How uh voltage and power is delivered to the processor. Instead of uh power being uh delivered from the side, now IVRs, integrated voltage regulators are put in a substrate inside an interposer, and then power is delivered directly to the backside, vertical power delivery into the processor.

Francoise von Trapp

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, so now you have power delivery components, IVRs, yeah, in a package and supplying power, so it generates a lot of heat. And you have to dissipate that heat because your processor don't want to absorb that heat. So there we are having two angles. One is high thermal underfill to uh uh kind of spread the heat out from these hot spots. And then the other one is when interposers are made with molding liquid molding compounds, and especially when these IVRs are integrated in this interposer. Now you need high thermal filled liquid encapsulates. The standard thermal encapsulates for interposer may not cut it. So we have uh new innovations on high thermal encapsulation. So that's the data processor side of the story. Hey, if you have more time, I can give you all the other use cases.

Francoise von Trapp

Oh, not all the others. We get maybe a minute.

SPEAKER_09

Then I'll I'll go to the mobile uh processor. Yeah? So in mobile processor, right now, many of your mobile has a what is called a POP architecture, package on page.

Francoise von Trapp

Right, package on package.

SPEAKER_09

Your processor is in the bottom, your memory is on top of the processor, and then hey, it functions swimmingly well. But as processor power increases, the heat from the processor needs to be extracted. So if it's sitting, if there's a memory device sitting on top, hey, not a conducive architecture to get the people are moving towards what is called a side-by-side architecture. Right. So the processor will be on one side, memory will be on the other side. Now the processor is backside is exposed, so you can extract the heat out. So that means again, um TIM materials, adhesive materials to attach a heat slug. Um, so we're we're innovating on our die attached materials to uh uh push that heat out.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah, because that was been the challenge, the stacking. When you start stacking logic, like memory is not a big deal because it doesn't really have any heat, but when you're stacking the processor on top, you know, logic on logic, that is one of the challenges. So it's good that you guys are working on it.

SPEAKER_09

That's right. Yeah, I mean in memory also, yeah. In high bandwidth memory, heat is a big problem. So even you stack four high, eight high, moving towards 20 high, hey, there's a lot of heat coming out. And even in high bandwidth memory, now we need uh heat extraction or heat spreading uh materials all around, not just depend on the copper pillars that's there.

Francoise von Trapp

Well, I am confident that you're gonna sort this out.

SPEAKER_09

Yes. We're working closely with our customers to do it. So uh look out for new products.

Francoise von Trapp

There we go. Well, and this is probably the last time we are on a podcast for a while, anyway. Um, but it's that is sad.

SPEAKER_09

We are gonna miss you a lot. You know, I I remember being in one of your very podcasts.

Francoise von Trapp

You were on one of my very first podcasts. Yeah, you were one of the people who convinced me that we could do this. That's right.

SPEAKER_09

I love the format. I'm glad we had a good run. I think we did uh quite a few on this.

Francoise von Trapp

We did, we did. We did, and at Semicon Europa too. This is not your the last time you were here.

SPEAKER_09

That's right, 2022. We did one in Semicon Europa too. Right. Hey.

Francoise von Trapp

Well, thank you so much for being part of this, and we will stay connected.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you, Francoise. Looking forward to being connected with you, okay? Thanks a lot.

Francoise von Trapp

So it's day two at Semicon Europa 2025, and I am speaking with Isabella Dolz of Comet. And we actually just talked a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_11

Absolutely, yeah. But thank you for having me again.

Francoise von Trapp

So anything new?

SPEAKER_11

Yes, actually there is. We've joined uh a new consortium called Joint Three in developing glass level packaging. And uh we are proud consortium partners in providing the next generation of inspector solution. Joint three is based in Japan, right?

Francoise von Trapp

Exactly. Resonac that started Joint Three. Exactly. So we actually covered a lot of Joint 3 activities last year in our uh advanced packaging cover story on the 3D Insights yearbook. We're celebrating the 50th anniversary of Semicon Europa. So when was your first Europa and where was it?

SPEAKER_11

My first Europa was four years ago. You're a newbie almost. I know I don't feel that that way, but yes, uh it feels like you know, every year it's like counting for three times. No, uh just kidding. No, it was four years ago, and uh that's also when we started the endeavor to go into the semiconductor industry all the way for for X-ray inspection. Okay, and now you've got one of the bigger booths.

Glass Panels, TGV Inspection, And Timing

Francoise von Trapp

You're over here next to the executive summits. So tell me how the show has been for you this week.

SPEAKER_11

Actually, it's very interesting because uh through being next to the Comet Executive Summit, we get a lot of strategic talks and have a lot of customers coming in. And of course, we have advanced in our product development. You you mentioned it before, we've launched every year a product apart from this one because now it's really feature development and working close with our co-creation customers. But uh you can see how advanced packaging is changing and uh also the inspection strategy and the need for that is changing, and that's why it's great coming to Semicon Europa or also other semicons to engage with our customers all around the globe.

Francoise von Trapp

So we have customers from elsewhere coming here. We've been talking a lot to people about the expansion of advanced packaging in Europe, and it doesn't seem that there is a lot other than the RD side of things, that advanced packaging is still happening in Asia primarily. Kind of evidence of that is you're joining a consortium based in Japan. So, how does that work?

SPEAKER_11

Well, yes, you're right. There is a lot of RD happening in Europe, and I think one thing that we have seen in the beginning, yes, we started working out with Ozads and IDMs, then foundries came in, and now we are basically also talking to material manufacturers, and we are also talking to design companies because all of them are concerned with the advanced packaging uh technology and process. And uh what we've experienced, especially in Europe, and this is kind of like this hidden industry, uh, is all the research that is going on, and they also need uh a respective inspection. But yes, you're absolutely right, over 60% of the market is happening in Asia, and this is also where we have a lot of interaction. But what we see in Semicon Europa, we see a lot of Asian visitors, but also American visitors coming here to the show.

Francoise von Trapp

Right. Okay. So do you think that there will ever be volume advanced packaging here? I mean, we've got Amcor and Portugal, and I know there's some smaller packaging houses that are supporting, you know, the local uh uh power electronics, automotive electronics, not the super advanced stuff. Do you think that will come here or do you think we're gonna be continuing to send that offshore? That's a tough question.

SPEAKER_11

So I think uh who which companies also doing a good job is Global Foundries uh who are taking this step into advanced packaging. I think it will really would take a while to get to Europe, the uh advanced technical uh packaging knots, uh especially we have a lot of IP in Asia and uh also covering that. I hope so. Uh, but I think it's gonna be a long way for Europe.

Francoise von Trapp

Let's talk more about joint three. You said it is glass panel. So is it a glass core panel or actual glass panel?

SPEAKER_11

So it's gonna be actual glass panels, and uh we will be doing the in first of all, we're gonna expand so that we can also inspect uh panels. Yeah. So the bigger size of it, and uh the interesting part is about uh the structure of the TGVs uh that we are going to inspect, and this is basically where we are headed.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, so the tool that you have is a CA20. Yes. Is that part of this program?

Lab14’s Direct-Write And Optics Push

SPEAKER_11

The platform is based on CA20.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, and so the platform is going to support what size panel?

SPEAKER_11

Well, we are right now looking at 610 by 610.

Francoise von Trapp

So you can put a panel up to 610. So that allows you to have that flexibility to both the 510 by 515, 610 by 610. And so, what are the application spaces do you expect to be for that volume of glass panel? I know it increases the volume, it lets you move use more of the area of the substrate for the packages. Are we talking a larger package sizes?

SPEAKER_11

Well, I think the industry is like now really looking at that, and um basically what we see is now the next two years will be a lot of experimenting in which weight really is going to get, and also to get it into mass production. Uh, what we see is that uh FEPS plan to be ramping up in 2028 and above, so we probably see in 2030 what's the real outcomes gonna be. Um from our perspective, it's a lot a similarity to TSVs and then TCV because TCVs are uh bigger. But uh for us it's to bring in okay, what how is the voiding in uh in copper plating, how is the metal layer structure, how is the TCV hole and um and the structure of the hole around it, are there any overlaps? But this will be our focus in uh in glass level packaging.

Francoise von Trapp

We talked a lot in the last couple of years about glass and the actual glass panels and then the glass core substrates. So what would the application be for glass panels? Is it gonna be for RF? Is it gonna be for logic? Is it gonna be for you know what are we building on these glass substrates?

SPEAKER_11

So it's definitely going into the logic direction.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. And these would be the substrate that the chips go on. Yes. Right. So basically as uh I um interposed group. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_11

So what's next for Comet? Oh, what's next for us? For us, it's entering into the the FEPS uh and bringing not only solution to uh new product ramp-ups and into failure analysis, but really working together with uh FEPS on their inspection process. And we are right now in with uh the top five uh OSATs and foundries uh working together in order to get that tested and implemented. That's pretty fantastic in four years.

Francoise von Trapp

Well, we are doing our best, we're trying to be on the high speed track. Yeah, absolutely. I didn't realize that it had only been four years.

SPEAKER_14

Yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So I wish you all the best. Thank you. This is the last time we'll be speaking since this is my swan song trip. And yeah, I'm very sad to hear that, but uh all the best. You never know, keep following me and transitioning into my fiction writing career.

SPEAKER_11

So yeah, and I'm looking forward to hear that story.

Francoise von Trapp

So thanks so much for you.

SPEAKER_11

Don't be a stranger, yeah. Oh no, of course not.

Francoise von Trapp

Take care. Thank you. So my next guests are Barry O'Dowd and Robin Knopf of Cunanogle. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for having us, Francoise. Thank you, Francoise.

Francoise von Trapp

So now, Barry, you've been On the podcast several times before, and Robin, this is your first time, but for our listeners, can you each share a little bit of your backgrounds and your role at Cuna Nagle?

SPEAKER_08

Certainly. My name is Barry O'Dowd. I'm uh with Kunanagle for 23 years. I've been 40 years in the logistics industry, and I'm focused on our semiconductor industry. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

And Robin?

SPEAKER_01

I'm Robin Knopf. I'm um almost 20 years in the industry now, um over seven years with Kunanagle, running the global C air product, uh, which we will talk about a little bit today.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, great. So, you know, here we are at Semicon Europa, and it's the 50th anniversary. I've been asking everyone to share their first semicon Europa experience. If you remember when and where it was.

SPEAKER_08

I do. My first semicon Europa experience was five years ago here in Munich. So I'm a relatively recent newbie for Semicon Europa.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay.

SPEAKER_08

Um and for me it was my first semicon event that I went to. So uh I enjoyed coming and and meeting so many of the industry participants and have met them at other semicon events across the world since.

Francoise von Trapp

And now I understand this week you either already gave or are giving a presentation.

SPEAKER_08

I am indeed. I'm speaking at the future disruptions event uh later on this afternoon.

Francoise von Trapp

Oh, so we will get around to that. And Robin, is this your first time?

Shellback’s Cleaning, Masks, And Momentum

SPEAKER_01

It is indeed, yes. It is my first time, and I'm really excited to look into this uh part of our business, and I'm a very excited listener of uh Barry's speech today, and of course, uh learning all about advanced packaging over the next couple of days and what the industry trends are, and uh yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So we've been talking about advanced packaging um expanding in Europe, and from what I've been hearing from other speakers is that at the moment it's still mostly RD here, and that most of the packaging is or the the advanced packaging anyway, is happening a lot in Asia. Are you seeing any trends that are going to bring advanced packaging to Europe?

SPEAKER_08

Well, we're seeing a couple of announcements that came out, which is nice to see. These announcements do take time to deliver, but uh Silicon Box have announced the deployment of a significant investment in northern Italy, a$3.2 billion investment. So hopefully that's going to proceed. We also have uh Foxconn have announced an investment in Paris, a$250 million investment in advanced packaging. So there are two investments.

Francoise von Trapp

Now they're traditionally in EMS, right? And they are investing in advanced packaging as well?

SPEAKER_08

They are apparently investing in advanced packaging for a facility in Paris. It is still not going to change the dynamic from a European perspective. So in advanced packaging, my understanding is that Europe is still only somewhere between 5 or 6 percent of advanced packaging sales globally. So it's still only a fractional part of that business. For the advanced packaging, my understanding is that it it's still the IDMs and the foundries that are undertaking it. The outsourced Assembly and test providers are only getting into the advanced packaging side now. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

What are your customers in Europe asking for as far as and what challenges are they facing in scaling locally?

SPEAKER_08

Okay, well, Europe is still providing a relatively small part of the advanced packaging sector, as we said. And we've realized that again recently with the Nexperia situation when the Dutch government reacquired Nexperia, and we found that although the wafers are made in Europe, the packaging element was taking place in in China, and it stopped the flow of goods until an agreement was reached with the Chinese government. The advanced packaging that's undertaken in Europe and the wafers that are made in Europe for Europe, they're all still connected into a global supply chain. So what we are supporting our customers with is that global supply chain. So we are providing logistics solutions to the semiconductor industry, so the complete industry, so including the fabs, but also including the outsourced packaging suppliers that are supporting that industry here in Europe.

Francoise von Trapp

So one of the things in the U.S. that we've been talking about a lot, because we're also struggling with onshoring advanced packaging, and the idea that advanced technology is going to be manufactured in the U.S., but we're still going to have to ship it to Asia for the advanced packaging part. And that doesn't seem to make sense, which is why we're trying to get the packaging locally sourced. So it it'll be interesting to see what happens in Europe and if they're successful with that.

SPEAKER_08

And we will try to do the same in Europe. I think when it comes to the deployments of the CHIPS Act, there has been more developments in the U.S. than there has been in Europe for the last number of years, so they've been able to make more progressions. I'm sure that Europe will continue the momentum. It just seems to be going at a slightly slower pace in Europe than it has been in North America.

unknown

Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

So from your perspective as a logistics supplier, can you help us understand what kinds of materials and equipment are moving across the advanced packaging chain and why that matters for your planning?

ASE On Automotive Chiplets And MEMS

SPEAKER_08

Sure. Well, there's there's different types of movements. So if you're looking at the movement of critical materials, so things like the wafers themselves, these are very delicate items and require careful handling to be shipped from the fabs out to the back-end suppliers. But you also have some sensitive equipment, maybe not as much or not as sensitive equipment as goes into the fabs. But there's critical supplies that need to be monitored and need to be shipped on a reliable basis to ensure that the advanced packaging or the packaging operations remain in uh an effective production. I think with the uh advanced packaging suppliers here or the advanced packaging companies here, we need to have to look how to optimize their supply chains. So we have various uh solutions that we've put in place in order to try and drive down cost and give our customers a predictable supply chain that they can plan against.

Francoise von Trapp

So that's interesting because one of the things there are a lot of here in Europe are the equipment and materials suppliers to the advanced packaging sector. A lot of companies like EV Group that focuses on their, you know, wafer bonding, for instance, specifically for the advanced packaging space. And if they're still shipping their tools to Asia versus being able to send them here, that must be something that you're dealing with on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_08

The supply chains will feed out to wherever their customers are in the most effective way. So it depends on where their production is taking place. Some of the equipment does come from Europe, but there is still lots of equipment that comes in from Asia into Europe, even equipment that is manufactured by European companies, some of it is manufactured in Asia. So it works both ways. Our job is just to try to ensure that whatever the requirements are, whatever those logistics requirements are, we can put something in place in order to meet that requirement. And to try to find the most optimized ways of doing so, particularly for products that require that level of optimization. For fabs, it's slightly different. Fabs tend to be in production 24 by 7, and packaging facilities aren't necessarily going to be round-the-clock operations. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, so Robin, for people who aren't familiar with it, you talked about you're running the C Air. Can you describe what that is?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so of course, not every uh shipment in the uh semicon industry is uh lithosensitive, right? Uh we're talking about also uh a lot of high-volume flows that are supporting uh the semicon industry, uh the FAPS, the OSATS, and so on. We have one of the solutions that Barry was talking about uh to meet the customer requirements in terms of high volume but also a little bit less sensitive, more predictive flows. I run with my team globally a product called C Air, which is a multimodal logistics product. We blend together ocean and air into a single seamless flow uh with the benefits of cost savings compared to all air and time savings compared to all ocean. We offer flexibility with that combination. And based on the origin and the urgency and the and the destination, of course, we do combine sea and air in uh in different ways. First sea, then air with uh what brings you a lot of cost efficiency on the ocean leg, and then followed by a very fast air delivery. Um, first air, then ocean is also on some of the routes available, where we first have an urgent initial lift and then uh economical follow-through. Um we manage this through a lot of different hubs in the world, um, suiting the lanes that we have, the origins and destinations that we serve. Uh, we operate this product through Dubai, Los Angeles, and Shanghai. They're all known for their strong capacity and high reliability as a logistics hub. Many of them also have free trade zones, which makes it very easy to transfer from air to ocean or ocean to air. I guess the question is why does it work for the advanced packaging industry? Um, I think it's quite ideal. We've seen a lot of uptake from customers in that space for the planned non-sensitive cargo. As I mentioned, uh, we're supporting the advanced packaging, like the subfab tools, spare parts, or or any other kind of packaging materials, basically across the lanes that that bridge that gap between on the one wave, you have the fast but expensive air freight and a more economical but yet quite slow ocean freight. So we bridge that big gap with with with sea air that brings the benefits, obviously, cost savings, time savings, and um also lower carbon emissions, which is uh a big driving system.

Francoise von Trapp

So people are still shipping their tools by sea.

SPEAKER_01

It's not about um for us really about replacing um one or the other, it's about finding the right fit. So, where do you have freight that has to move on in a certain urgency? But does it need to be at the destination basically within two, three days, where you have a little bit more time, but the gap between air for a few days and ocean, which is easily a six, seven, eight weeks transit time, that gap is too big. And we're filling that with that combined service where we are able then to offer cost savings compared to all air and time savings compared to all ocean. So we really sit in that in that middle.

SPEAKER_08

But for cargo that doesn't require special handling.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. Yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So anything that requires because I can I'm just imagining tools being transferred from the uh a ship to a to the airplane.

SPEAKER_08

No, we tend not to do that for sensitive cargo.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. And Barry, just quickly, we're a little bit over time, but if you could just tell us a little um highlight or recap of what you're talking about today.

Farewell Reflections And Closing

SPEAKER_08

Today we're talking about uh supply chain resilience and the importance of customers really taking time to look at their supply chains and to put mechanisms in place to ensure that their supply chains are resilient. So that's the the area of future disruptions we're talking about, to ensure that the disruptions that we've enjoyed over the last five years, which seems to be permanent, that customers are have preparations in place to try to manage that in a structured way going forward.

Francoise von Trapp

You know, um we have talked about this a lot on 3D Insights. So if people don't get to hear your talk, I recommend they go back and listen to the webinar that we did last spring. And I think we also had a podcast on the topic of um risk mitigation and ris and supply chain resilience.

SPEAKER_08

We did indeed.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, great. Well, thank you so much, both of you, for joining me today. And um take care.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Francoise, and it's been great working with you.

Francoise von Trapp

Thank you.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you.

Francoise von Trapp

So I'm here on the floor at Semicon Europa. It's day two, and my next guest is Martin Weinatz van Reisent from Lab 14, which was one of our premium members. Welcome to the podcast, Martin.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you so much.

Francoise von Trapp

You've been members for just about a year now, and we recently talked with your brother Neil about why Lab 14 exists and its dedication to reparations for the coal mining industry.

SPEAKER_06

That's right.

Francoise von Trapp

Right. Okay, so we don't we're not gonna talk about that, but can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your role at the company?

SPEAKER_06

I'm the CEO actually, and I'm the guy actually who uh gathered all the companies together.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay.

SPEAKER_06

Uh so originally I came from Heidelberg Instruments. My father was the founder.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay.

SPEAKER_06

And we sold the company in 2015 actually uh to the RSVG Foundation. That's the foundation you mentioned, or Niels mentioned. And uh my task was actually to build everything around structuring.

Francoise von Trapp

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_06

Um, so you have the process before, you have the back-end process, you have the front-end process, and that's actually what we're doing as a network of companies together in lab 14.

Francoise von Trapp

So all of your companies serve different parts of the semiconductor manufacturing process.

SPEAKER_06

Right.

Francoise von Trapp

And Heidelberg is focused in the advanced packaging space.

SPEAKER_06

Heidelberg Intimates is focused in the advanced packaging space, but also when you when you look into the advanced packaging, also optical interconnects are getting more and more interesting.

Francoise von Trapp

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_06

And that's why we acquired nanoscrab last year.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay.

SPEAKER_06

Nanoscrib is doing 3D printing also to for the mastering of this optical interconnects for the packaging industry, which will be the next big wave.

Francoise von Trapp

Right, right. So co-packaged optics is one of your wheelhouse areas.

SPEAKER_06

That's right.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. So in Europe, we've been talking to everybody about how expanding the advanced packaging processes here in Europe, and I'm understanding from people that it's still very much offshore. What do you see the opportunities to bring it to Europe?

SPEAKER_06

So that's actually what we are doing because uh we are we are bringing new technologies in the in the packaging market. So we have every screw actually you can imagine in order to um get a better uh structure size or throughput. That's actually what we are building up in the in Europe, but also all of your companies are equipment companies. We have one software company actually, that's uh Genesis. Okay, but they are also making the structuring like Masker uh for advanced packaging. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

So your customers are the OSATs and the IDMs?

SPEAKER_06

Right.

Francoise von Trapp

Right. So in Europe, most of the packaging is done at IDMs, right?

SPEAKER_06

Well, we are doing, we are in the RD part, actually, for advanced packaging.

Francoise von Trapp

I see, okay.

SPEAKER_06

And we we're pushing it into the industry. That's the next step that we are doing in the next two, three, two, three years to bring the new technologies into the advanced packaging market.

Francoise von Trapp

So if people were to think about the role Europe plays in the advanced packaging space, it is in the RD and development of advanced packaging processes and technology. And that those are being implemented in the volume manufacturing sites in Asia primarily.

SPEAKER_06

Besides that, so for the the high volume uh market for the packaging, we have the services businesses which do the refurbishing uh not only for mechanical parts, but also for optical parts, like steppers and stuff. Okay. Uh with AMPOS, they they can refurbish the whole optics. But uh like what we did before is that uh we were a mask-making company with Heidelberg Instruments, but now we are changing that you you don't need a mask anymore, yeah. Also for the advanced packaging. You can do the direct write, right? And that's with the new products which are coming up uh on our side. It's the Apple AS300, for example, which does direct writing of uh advanced packaging, uh not only uh for um wafers, but also large substrates. So the the largest substrate we can actually structure is uh 1.8 meters by 1.4 meters, right?

Francoise von Trapp

On glass panels. So that's pretty large. Uh the panel sizes are standardizing in the 515, 510, and 600 by 600?

SPEAKER_06

That's our origin, actually. We come from the display industry. Right, okay. And now we are transferring that to advanced packaging.

Francoise von Trapp

So have you been working with Fraunhofer? We are in the consortium. Okay. So what's next for lab 14? What do you have in the works?

SPEAKER_06

So I think at the moment we are still like 70% in the RD market, but I think we are moving towards 50% RD market and 50% production market.

Francoise von Trapp

Are you acquiring any more companies?

SPEAKER_06

No. We are consolidating actually, and we are working as business groups together. So we have the structuring business group, we have the analytics business groups, which also we are pushing into the semiconductor industry with uh with their new uh systems actually for uh uh imaging uh with uh analyzing of uh surfaces and structures, and yeah, we're working together to bring our new technologies in the in the semiconductor market.

Francoise von Trapp

Is there any chance that all of the brands that you have under the lab 14 um umbrella will go away, the brand names, and it'll just be lab 14?

SPEAKER_06

No, we we love our brands, uh they have a long history, hybrid instruments 40 years, yeah, uh specs group 30 years. I don't want to see it as uh as a lab 14. I think lab 14 stands for we we are uh bringing the uh the power actually for them to develop new technologies for a semiconductor market.

Francoise von Trapp

Great. Well, thank you so much, and thank you for being part of 3D Insights. Yeah, thank you. I'm here with Jim Garska. I said it right. I said it right from Shellback, semiconductor. And actually, I tried for a very long time to get Shellback to become members, and now they are now and now I'm retiring.

SPEAKER_10

I know it's too bad.

Francoise von Trapp

Well, so we talked to Phil. We learned all about Hydrazone a few weeks ago at IMEMs. One of the issues this fall is that we've had these three events back to back, and there isn't a whole lot new to talk about. So we're gonna just talk a little bit about semiconductoropa. Now you've been with Shellback for what, three years? Almost three years now, yes, yeah. And before that, you were with Plasma. And that's where we first met.

SPEAKER_10

That's when I first we met and we were members there and and loved what was going on. And when I got here, we we joined.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah, and when actually, when you were members there, you did your first podcast and then sold a tool. So that was that was a you know pretty exciting point for us. So here we are, semiconduba 2025. It's the 50th anniversary of semicondupa.

SPEAKER_10

Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

So when was your first Europa?

SPEAKER_10

That's a great question. I remember my first West. It was 97. Okay, and it had to be in the mid-2000s when the first Europa and I I don't recall.

Francoise von Trapp

My first one was 2007. I was at Advanced Packaging magazine.

SPEAKER_10

Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

That's where I got the moniker of the Queen of 3D.

SPEAKER_10

So you've you've worn that well.

Francoise von Trapp

Thank you. Thank you. And then 2008 advanced packaging, and then I didn't go for a while.

SPEAKER_10

Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

Uh and then 2017, back at it. So much. My first one was in Stuttgart. Do you remember where your first I think it was Grenoble? Was it Grenoble or so? It was Grenoble. I think it was Grenoble the first time. Yeah. So it was going back and forth for a while between Grenoble and Dresden. Dresden, yeah. And then it came here. So how how have things been this year?

SPEAKER_10

Things have been uh I think in our space a little challenging. Started the year great, Q2 with tariff world, uh everything was pushed and on hold. We saw a slight recovery in Q3 and it's accelerated now in Q4. So uh it's at least we're ending the year and on a big upswing.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Um and 26 is looking pretty positive too.

Francoise von Trapp

So Shellback is located in the US.

SPEAKER_10

We're US based.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay. How much advanced packaging business are you seeing in Europe?

SPEAKER_10

Before I got here, recently it was like almost nothing. The company really wasn't focused on advanced packaging. We slow we're changing that quickly. There's more opportunities for what we do in that space. Um Asia's growing for us, but we're we're targeting, so it's you know, less than 10% of our business is advanced packaging, but it was zero, you know, two years ago. Okay.

Francoise von Trapp

But are you is your customer base mostly in Asia then?

SPEAKER_10

For advanced packaging, yes.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah, are you seeing any growth here? I just heard today that Global Foundry is is, I think, building a facility in Dresden.

SPEAKER_10

Well, that's exciting. So that's good news for you. Yes.

Francoise von Trapp

You can send them right over there.

SPEAKER_10

We'll be there. Or in my early days when when they had advanced packaging too, uh, when I was with semitool, we did we broke in there with uh a lot of cleaning and etching and uh uh plating equipment with that was back when it was AMD.

Francoise von Trapp

Okay, so you were with semitool, applied, acquired semitool.

SPEAKER_10

That's when I I left.

Francoise von Trapp

And you left, and that's when you ended up at Plasma Therm?

SPEAKER_10

No, kinetics. I was with kinetics for a while, right? And that's found my way to PlasmaTherm after that.

Francoise von Trapp

And now you're here. So that just goes to show how this industry, you know, for people who are interested in working in this industry, it's a small community.

SPEAKER_10

And the the small ecosystem is even more, I think, uh highlighted with with this show compared to other shows. There's a lot more camaraderie, um uh friendship. Uh it's a different atmosphere compared to the West or China, Japan.

Francoise von Trapp

The parties are better.

SPEAKER_10

Parties are much better.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Much more alcohol.

Francoise von Trapp

Much more alcohol starting starting early days. Starting early, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Today's party day, and yesterday was not as busy as it is here. And I'm convinced that people know that booth parties are on Wednesday afternoons, and so that's the day they asked.

SPEAKER_10

We tried this year, uh, because the booth parties are so popular, like they already are established. What can we do different? We wanted to have on a Thursday morning mimosa after booth party hangover party.

Francoise von Trapp

Oh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_10

But it was we couldn't we thought of it way too late, so we couldn't pull it up. But next year, yeah. Next year, unfortunately, I will miss that.

Francoise von Trapp

But uh I'll be I'll be thinking about you all. And you know, ERS, if you want any tips there, ERS used to do a Bavarian breakfast on Thursday morning with vice versa and beer.

SPEAKER_10

That would work.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah. So if you want to be traditional to the locale, that would be what you shoot for. But you could also have mimosas there. Mimosas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So anyway. Yeah, so we talked about hydrazone.

SPEAKER_10

The new thing with hydrozone for us has been photo mass cleaning. Out of the blue, like there's not a lot of photomass manufacturers left. Every single one of them is like we're seeing as as for the the technology with the traditional pre-clean the clean with uh uh sulfuric, there's a haze because of the chemistry.

Francoise von Trapp

Right.

SPEAKER_10

And hydrazone, they need the the uh sulfuric free. So that's been a new little so can the tool support that yes, yeah.

Francoise von Trapp

So they can they don't just have to put wafers in there, they can put they can put photo masks in there.

SPEAKER_10

We can put masks, uh we think we can do all kinds of different uh substrates. We have a custom clamshell, we call it carrier. Okay, uh, so we can handle like we can do medical device stuff as well with spray, spray batch.

Francoise von Trapp

That is very cool. Glad to hear that. Okay. I guess we'll just see you when we see you.

SPEAKER_10

Yes, thank you for having me and good luck in your retirement and writing career.

Francoise von Trapp

Thank you. Looking forward to it. Okay. So, everybody, it is the end of the second day. We're we've got booth parties ahead of us at Semicon Europa, and this is my last podcast interview as the Queen of 3D for 3D Insights. Wow. So I am speaking with three members of ASE. Um, ASE has been a longtime sponsor of 3D Insights, and they've been spending their day at the Advanced Packaging Conference, and then I think there was a MEMS event. And so I have Dr. Christoph Zink and Dr. Bradford Factor of ASE and also Patricia McLeod, my friend for a long time. So can you each just tell a little bit about your roles at ASE and then I will ask you about your presentations?

SPEAKER_04

Patricia, do you want to start? Well, it's lovely to see you here, Francoise. We're pretty sad this is the last uh podcast ever, but we're delighted to be a part of this. Uh I'm Patricia McLeod, uh Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Industry Partnerships with responsibility for North America and Europe. So it's really been um excellent experience here in Munich this week, um, especially with the expanded interest in advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration.

Francoise von Trapp

I have been talking about it for at least 16 years, maybe 20 years. So it's really exciting for me to see it finally taking off. So here at the advanced packaging conference, Christoph, you just wrapped up a talk and you were talking about heterogeneous integration and chiplets in automotive applications.

SPEAKER_05

Correct.

Francoise von Trapp

So can you kind of just give a little three-minute recap of your talk and what the focus was on?

SPEAKER_05

Sure. So basically the focus was to explain what's the need in automotive and how we see the technology acceleration, but also what are the key differences versus the uh the HPC device, AI device, especially in terms of readability, and uh what could be the benefit from 2.1D integration, etc. But also what are the drawbacks and what we need to to work on to make it happen.

Francoise von Trapp

So it's only recently in the past few years that we've thought about putting HPC and chiblets and high performance in automotive applications. Is that is that being driven kind of by the smart car?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, correct. So basically there's a trend to go from localized application to centralized uh unit. And this brings a big requirement for computing power. And also there is this need to bring more functionality in terms in inside the package, so like the memory for the GPU, the Jira memory, or in the MCU to bring the flash memory inside the package to have better performance. And uh, but still with the constraint about high-reability uh requirement from the end custom.

Francoise von Trapp

So, Brad, uh MEMS is not my expertise, but I know it's yours. What was today's event about and what was your presentation about? Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So the event was a gathering of players, mainly in Europe, but actually worldwide. Okay. From labs to startups to uh major players in the industry, uh, from the fabrication and the uh uh component uh sales or component uh product uh manufacturers. And ASE, we package MEMS devices since 1999 when we acquired a facility that was in manufacturing uh uh MEMS uh MEMS sensors. And what we have seen over the past 20 years is that there has been an immense diversification in the applications. Right. So it goes from temperature sensors, magnetic sensors, gyroscopes, gyroscopes, accelerometers, and then you can have gas sensors, humidity sensors, going under proximity sensors, so something that detects light all the way up to very high-resolution image sensors, which you have on your phone. So many of these devices have been cost optimized to be and and made reliable for a consumer application such as the uh mobile phone.

Francoise von Trapp

Right. So what was your talk today?

SPEAKER_00

And so today I essentially gave a survey of what we do for packaging of MEMS devices. The reason why ASC is interested in MEMS and sensors is it accompanies the other products that we uh manufacture. So when we do packaging of, as Christoph mentioned, processors for AI applications or for automotive processors for automated driving, they actually supply the data that goes into the processors. So there's actually a synergy between the data coming from sensors and what will be processed either at the edge near near the uh sensor devices or in a central processor.

Francoise von Trapp

And when you're talking about the central processor, that's taking the sensors from the different part of the automobile and putting them into one central location, the central island, right, in the automobile.

SPEAKER_00

You could you could call that um in in the industry, they call it the um high performance compute that is essentially running the brain of the car. There will be an algorithm that um fuses all the data together so that it can decide if there's a if there's danger or if it should veer to the right or veer to the left. Or or do uh automatic braking.

SPEAKER_05

If I may I it's on both sides. So you receive the information, you compute, and then you react. Right. Yes. So then you brake you whatever is needed in the car.

Francoise von Trapp

And it makes more sense to have the compute locally than having to send it, especially for automotive applications, right? Yeah, it has to be in the car. So if you had to wait for it to go up to the cloud and come back, then the accident would happen.

SPEAKER_05

You you have the local information from the car, and then you will also get information from the um the network, right?

Francoise von Trapp

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_05

But it's important you can compute from the car directly.

Francoise von Trapp

How about other cars?

SPEAKER_00

From other cars as well.

Francoise von Trapp

Is there anything else we want to add?

SPEAKER_00

So the first time I think I had met you at a conference, you would ask the speakers, how do you feel about TSV and 3D integration?

Francoise von Trapp

Oh, that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00

It was a long time ago. Maybe 15 years ago.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah, at least.

SPEAKER_00

And today, where are we?

Francoise von Trapp

We're using them.

SPEAKER_00

We're there.

SPEAKER_04

We're there. So my job is done. Right? Yeah. And on that note, uh, Francoise, um, on behalf of VSE, we just want to acknowledge a tremendous contribution that you've made to this industry. And through your platform, you have given all types of technologists, engineers, all types of professions, professionals in this industry a voice. And um you've brought big issues to the fore, you've brought big innovations to the fore, and we're going to miss Francoise von Trapp. I think when you came along, it's been over 20 years. Just about 20 years. Um and I think you asked difficult questions. So, in some ways, you're, you know, a little bit of a disruptor. You made people think out of the box with um the type of interviews you were doing, the type of on the spot questions you were asking at conferences. So I hope that there's other Francoise von traps that can emerge and keep keep our technologists on our toes, ask difficult questions and really make them think. So thank you, Francoise. And you know, as you head off into retirement, we wish you the very, very best.

Francoise von Trapp

Thank you so much, Patricia.

SPEAKER_04

You know, hopefully we'll still see you around.

Francoise von Trapp

Oh, I'll be around. Yeah, I live in Arizona, so I'm EpsDPC and we'll see you there.

SPEAKER_05

You sure will.

Francoise von Trapp

Yeah. At least I'll be I'll be around for the parties.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, that's the most important thing.

Francoise von Trapp

Thanks so much. Thanks everybody for stopping. Take care. My friends, that's it. My final episode of the 3D Insights podcast. So many kind words from my industry colleagues and friends. I'm a bit overwhelmed. It's hard to believe it's over. It's been a journey, and I've met the most amazing people along the way. But for me, it is time for something new. So stay connected with me on LinkedIn to see what's gonna happen. And as always, thanks for listening and from Semicon Europa 2025 and 3D Insights, I'll feed Hussein. The 3D Insights podcast is a production of 3D Insights LLC.