How hybrid bonding changes the chip game

Latest update time：2024-09-21

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Hybrid bonding, also known as direct bond interconnect, is poised to transform the semiconductor industry as market demand for more data access, everywhere, grows and Moore’s Law slows. While the industry moves toward advanced packaging solutions in this More Than Moore era, there is a growing consensus that traditional packaging technology may have reached its limits. This stark realization has led a growing number of scientists and engineers to seek to identify and deploy technologies that can achieve higher density interconnects than traditional copper microbumps.

Hybrid bonding meets this need by reducing interconnect size, allowing for more efficient and faster signal transmission. The technology has its roots in research from the late 2000s to early 2010s. The technology has made significant progress over the past few years as companies and research institutions, led by Adeia, have developed and improved the technology to meet the growing demand for higher performance, greater interconnect density and better thermal management in semiconductor devices.

Mixed Bond Properties

One of the reasons hybrid bonding technology has gained attention and widespread adoption is that it enables chips from different nodes, functions and manufacturers to be assembled in a heterogeneous manner while functioning as if they were built monolithically. The concept of designing chips (small pieces of functionality in silicon) and connecting them with standard interfaces has revolutionized the industry.

The combination of hybrid bonding interconnects and chiplet architecture is expected to reduce the cost of product upgrades by:

Reduce reliance on product roadmaps for transistor node scaling, which is slow and costly
Create affordable, standardized chips that are combined at the package level, thereby reducing costs and lowering barriers to entry for system-on-chip (SoC) innovation and manufacturing operations

Hybrid bonding enables minimum pitches as small as 0.4 µ, much smaller than the 35 µ minimum pitch of conventional microbumps. This highly efficient electrical conduit provides higher density input/output (I/O) connections with lower inductance, capacitance and resistance, resulting in faster, lower power signal transmission. It is formed as part of the standard integrated circuit wafer process, eliminating additional steps in manufacturing interconnects. In contrast, solder microbumps require multiple process steps outside of the foundry.

Hybrid bonding eliminates short circuits and reliability issues associated with shrinking microbumps and solder reflow assembly. In addition, hybrid interconnect bonding is performed at room temperature, while microbumps require heating to improve alignment accuracy and throughput assembly processes.

These characteristics make hybrid bonding regarded as a transformative technology in advanced packaging and adopted by various fields in the semiconductor industry. The advantages of this technology help to solve the problem of product performance differentiation.

Hybrid Bonding in Action

One of the main applications of hybrid bonding is in image sensor manufacturing. Sony was the first to adopt this manufacturing technology and captured a significant market share, which enabled the company to realize stacked image sensors and provide differentiated product features. Now, more than 90% of companies in the industry use direct bonding and hybrid bonding in their products.

Recently, some NAND manufacturers (YMTC, Kioxia, and WD) have adopted hybrid bonding technology and introduced new architectures with enhanced performance. The rest of the manufacturers have reported plans to adopt hybrid bonding technology within a few years, indicating that the technology is about to be used in memory applications.

The technology is also used in the RF field, which requires low I/O density and high speed. In addition, many dynamic random access memory and high-performance computing module manufacturers are preparing their production lines to introduce hybrid bonding interconnects in their products. AMD is an active promoter of chiplet architecture and has released several generations of hybrid bonding SoC products since 2022.

Advantages of Hybrid Bonding

Higher I/O density: Compared with micro-bump technology, hybrid bonding can achieve 10,000 times higher interconnect density per unit area, significantly improving the connection capacity between chips and achieving faster signal transmission with lower power consumption.
Lower inductance, capacitance and resistance: The reduced size of hybrid bond interconnects results in lower inductance, capacitance and resistance. This enables faster signal transmission, lower power consumption and higher overall performance.
Scalability: Because hybrid bonding can scale to sub-micron pitches, finer and more precise interconnects can be achieved. Studies have shown pitches of 0.4 microns, with even smaller pitches possible in the future.
Simplified manufacturing process: Switching to hybrid bonding interconnects in high-bandwidth memory requires fewer process steps compared to the micro-bump approach, saving costs and improving efficiency. The process involves about 11 steps, resulting in more streamlined and efficient production.
Flexibility for system architects: Hybrid bonding provides system architects with greater creative freedom when designing chips and systems, facilitating the integration of heterogeneous components and enabling the construction of systems on chips. This flexibility allows systems to be customized and optimized for specific requirements.

Thermal performance advantages

The semiconductor industry has been working to increase density and stack chips vertically, which creates thermal challenges. Compared to traditional packaging methods, hybrid bonding interconnect interfaces improve thermal performance by reducing the temperature difference between chips within a chip stack. This can improve the efficiency and speed of accessing memory and other functions, making it possible to stack multiple chips without compromising performance.

In short, hybrid bonding technology will be a game-changer in the semiconductor industry, promising higher performance, lower power consumption, and enhanced efficiency in chip manufacturing and design.

Reference Links

https://www.eetimes.com/revamping-the-semiconductor-industry-with-hybrid-bonding/

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