真乄科技業的頂尖投資團隊

The Lithography market has been a quite established business in the last 10 years, especially for More Moore markets, with a domination of ASML and its disintegrated supply chain model, compared to Canon and Nikon.
But the More Than Moore applications are telling us a complete different story. As described in the new report from Yole Développement (Photolithography Equipment and Materials for Advanced Packaging, MEMS and LED Applications.), the photolithography market for advanced packaging Mems and LED manufacturing will almost double in units between 2014 and 2020, with very important market opportunities in advanced packaging and MEMS.

But as the supply chain for such applications is more fragmented compared to More Moore applications and roadmaps are also extremely complex, we have interviewed Mr. Ralph Zoberbier, General Manager Exposure and Laser Processing at SUSS MicroTec, a leading lithography equipment provider in the market for MEMS, advanced packaging and compound semiconductors, in order to understand their vision of the evolution of the industry and what it means to be part of the More Than Moore revolution(s)…


Yole Développement: Can you introduce SUSS MicroTec’s product line in lithography market, its history and current activity?
Ralph Zoberbier: Over the last years, SUSS MicroTec developed its product portfolio to a full set of complimentary lithography technologies, including proximity printing, projection lithography, nanoimprint lithography and excimer laser ablation. Initially the company developed and provided mask aligners for decades. New and emerging applications in our target markets demanded different features and capabilities beyond the aligner and are driving the continuous expansion of our product and technology portfolio. 
Target markets and applications are in the area of advanced packaging, MEMS, III-V semiconductors such as LEDs and academia. With the latest extension of the technology portfolio SUSS MicroTec could gain business traction also in new markets such as flexible electronics and medical applications.
Total revenue of the company - SUSS MicroTec concluded the 2014 fiscal year with a revenue of 145.3 million.

YD: Which market(s) and applications mainly drive(s) SUSS MicroTec’s revenue today? 
RZ: The most important market segments of SUSS MicroTec are advanced packaging and MEMS applications. Key industry drivers are the continuous market growth of consumer electronics such as smartphones and the IoT, including all kinds of sensors and communication devices.

YD: What are the competitive advantages of your products? What applications does SUSS MicroTec target?
RZ: The major advantage of SUSS mask aligners is based on the unique exposure optics technology (MO Exposure Optics) and its precise overlay capabilities. They are known as very mature and reliable equipment that are widely used in all market segments. The new projection scanner technology of SUSS MicroTec promises to be the lowest-cost projection technology, mainly targeting 300mm packaging applications. Looking at our laser ablation technology, one has to understand that this disruptive technology enables the use of non-photo dielectrics in packaging applications that requires higher mechanical and thermal stability. Laser ablation is therefore currently evaluated in packaging applications but already an established technology in the manufacturing of flexible electronics and medical devices.

YD: How do you see the evolution on the markets you are involved in for the coming years?
RZ: Main changes are expected to happen in the area of advanced packaging. New materials but also new packaging platforms and technologies such as fan out wafer level packaging are driving the development of dedicated equipment sets to meet the technical requirements but also the cost targets. E.g. in a few years high volume panel processing solutions will be required in applications that typically dealt with wafer scale up to 300mm only so far.

YD: What will be for you the major evolutions of the lithography business in the coming years?
RZ: The main promising areas of growth for SUSS MicroTec are expected to be for our new projection lithography solutions and laser ablation. However these growth technologies are targeting market segments with very high level of competition. 

YD: What is the status of SUSS MicroTec in Advanced Packaging, MEMS devices and LED and what changes do you expect in the future? 
RZ: There is a long and a short answer for this. In a nutshell: SUSS MicroTec was able to build up a very strong market position in MEMS and LED applications. With the continuous development and improvements on the SUSS mask aligners, SUSS MicroTec will maintain or even expand this position, furthermore SUSS MicroTec is established as a leading equipment provider in advanced packaging applications. Especially with its new technologies and toolsets SUSS MicroTec targets to further increase market share in this area. 



YD: What is the most promising lithography equipment for Advanced Packaging, MEMS and LED devices? Why?
RZ: There is no single lithography solution that fits best to all applications. The broad range of resolution and overlay requirements, substrate format and sizes and desired cost structures cannot be covered by one single patterning technology. The process engineer needs to carefully compare technical compatibility with technical and commercial requirements. 

YD: According to you, what are the main technical challenges for lithography in the packaging, MEMS & LED area and how is SUSS MicroTec addressing them?
RZ: On one hand the main technical challenge is the ever increasing requirements on feature sizes and overlay performance in combination with increasing cost sensitivity in the target markets. On the other hand application specific challenges are typically related with the substrate size and thickness. Very strong wafer warpage, unevenness and stiffness are typical challenges that impact the lithography performance and finally the yield. 
SUSS MicroTec continuously develops new features, such as special optics and new substrate handling methodologies to meet these challenges in a cost-efficient way….

YD: What are for you the main critical process steps in the packaging, MEMS devices and LED?
RZ: One of the key challenge is the decrease of feature size. Overlay becomes critical due to the increased complexity of the More Than Moore devices. The market push for lithography equipment at 2µm features in the next years is strong and is a key trend that SUSS MicroTec is taking into account in its strategy in the new equipment development. SUSS MicroTec has created a portfolio with multiple lithography technologies in order to be able to adapt its offer to the needs of the market.

YD: For which advanced packaging platform do you expect a high growth for the next few years for further investment in lithography tools? Why?
RZ: Besides the already mentioned investments in Fan-out and Flip-chip applications, we expect a significant transition from 200mm to 300mm in CIS packaging and a strong need for lithography equipment in panel applications such as 2.5D interposer, embedded die and panel fowlp.

YD: What are the main end-applications that will drive the next growth of these different platforms? 
RZ: Clearly, smart phones, IoT and wearable electronics are the drivers.

YD: What is your analysis of the lithography competitive landscape?
RZ: The competitive landscape changed a lot over the last 5 years. There are only a few mask aligner technology providers active in the market but many new players are entering the projection lithography segment. In addition laser direct imaging or laser write technologies are emerging and have great potential to become another relevant patterning technology.

YD: We have seen lithography equipment suppliers coming from the PCB manufacturing area willing to enter the lithography market with disruptive technologies: what are the challenges for SUSS MicroTec? How will SUSS MicroTec compete against the leaders?
RZ: We are taking this change in the competitive landscape very seriously and are preparing accordingly. As of today LDI technology is either limited in its resolution capability or does not yet provide the required throughput capability for HVM. However, that will most likely change over the next years as computing power and laser energy will improve.



YD: You have 2 disruptive technologies in your lithography systems portfolio, namely Nanoimprint lithography and Laser ablation Can you tell us more on the applications you target, the roadmap you envisage for these technologies?
RZ: We clearly see nanoimprint technology evolving from a pure research technique into production applications. Main application fields are in the area of HB LED, Photovoltaics, MEMS, NEMS and optical gratings e.g. for gas sensing. With this change the market requires dedicated automated equipment. Nanoimprint needs a lot of adaptation in order to reach the right level of process stability, repeatability, yield…
The biggest opportunity for laser ablation is in patterning of non-photo dielectrics. The ever increasing requirement of higher performance packages is driving the need for better dielectric materials. Non-photo dielectrics provide the desired mechanical and thermal capabilities for high performance packages but could not be processed cost efficiently so far. These polymers can now be processed with the excimer laser ablation stepper and meet cost targets and industry roadmap requirements. 

YD: How do you see the evolution of these disruptive and alternatives lithography technologies in the lithography market?
RZ: As described above, these disruptive/alternative lithography technologies will co-exist with already established and mature systems.
If you are looking from an external point of view to the technologies available, mask aligners are by far the technology providing the lowest COO, throughput and lowest capex (factor 2-4 compared to a stepper…) in the industry for a specific demand. So the move to stepper will only be done if the mask aligners are not adapted in terms of specifications.
In advanced packaging, the manufacturing of copper pillar for FC, several of the FO platforms may need steppers as the overlay can be below 1µm. So here only, the stepper is the technical answer, but at very high price.
When it comes to new technologies like LDI and Laser Write Technology, they either provide good throughput OR the ability to reach desired feature sizes, but not both at the same time yet. In these cases, still specific development of laser and laser management systems is required. Time and investment is needed in order to deliver the right solution.

YD: In order to reduce cost, the industry is currently working on developing a panel infrastructure based. Will SUSS MicroTec be able to support panel based infrastructure? And if yes, can you comment on your level of readiness and for which of your products? 
RZ: SUSS MicroTec will definitely support the industry with panel capable technologies and equipment. So far SUSS MicroTec already provides a projection scanner and laser ablation products for panel processing.

YD: What are the next steps for SUSS growth in this lithography industry?
RZ: SUSS MicroTec continues to focus on its lithography product line and to contribute to the advancements of next-generation technologies. We are continuously working on new products and technologies to increase our market position in target applications mentioned above. An important factor for succeeding in our work is the close collaboration with our partners, like materials suppliers, research institutes and of course, our key industrial customers. Another factor that forms the key to SUSS MicroTec’s strength is our strong portfolio - we own the entire lithography process knowhow and offer complete lithography solutions that include coat/bake, develop, and patterning.


Biography: 

Ralph Zoberbier graduated in Precision Engineering and Microsystems Technology from the University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg. He joined SUSS MicroTec in 2001 as R&D Project Manager. In 2005 he became International Product Manager Aligner. From 2010 – 2014, he led the Aligner Product Management team as Director Product Management. With the acquisition of Tamarack Scientific Inc., his responsibility was extended by complementary projection lithography and laser process technology. In 2014 he was appointed to General Manager Exposure and Laser Processing. Ralph gained his MBA degree in Entrepreneurship at Louisville University, Kentucky.

Source:YOLE