Director’s Corner
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Welcome to the quarterly newsletter from the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center (PRC).
We are an academic center leading the world in HETEROGENEOUS INTEGRATION using ADVANCED PACKAGING as a platform for enabling future microelectronics
systems. I share with you two recent articles, that provides details on our research, education, workforce development and technology transfer.
https://research.gatech.edu/microelectronics-momentum-drives-nations-semiconductor-resurgence
https://content.yudu.com/web/43wcl/0A43wm9/fDiDecJan22/html/index.html?page=54&origin=reader
A major impact we have had over many years is the placement of our talented students at top notch semiconductor companies. An example is Sridhar Sivapurapu (left in the photo) who just defended his Ph.D. thesis and will be joining Qualcomm in San Diego.
To learn more about PRC, please visit us at www.prc.gatech.edu.
We provide below some recent research highlights.
Sincerely,
Madhavan Swaminathan
Research Highlights
MATERIAL DESIGN FOR WIRELESS APPLICATIONS
With the advancement in wireless communications, there is a need for new advanced materials with improved dielectric properties. Through collaboration between Taiyo Ink and PRC, we have recently developed a dry film dielectric material with outstanding electrical and excellent mechanical properties. This new material is based on polyphenylene ether (PPE) that has extremely low dielectric loss. PPE (or Material P), which is a thermoplastic polymer, was modified using a new chemical design into a thermosetting polymer. The new dielectric material can be processed at a low temperature of about 200 ⁰C and is compatible with standard substrate manufacturing processes, such as semi additive process (SAP). This work was presented by Takenori Kakutani from Taiyo Ink at the 71st ECTC conference, 2021. Read here.
Modified PPE material: (Left) Synthesis; (Middle) Dry Film; and (Right) Material stack-up using new material.
ALUMINA RIBBON CERAMIC SUBSTRATE WITH UNIQUE PROPERTIES
A recently developed material technology from Corning is gaining momentum, namely, Alumina Ribbon Ceramics. Substrates made with this material can be as thin as 40μm. In collaboration with Corning, PRC developed a Semi-Additive Patterning (SAP) process to evaluate the material properties and transmission line characteristics of this material system. Based on measurements, the dielectric constant was measured to be around 9.87 with the dielectric loss tangent in the range 0.0003 to 0.0013 from 30-170 GHz. The measured insertion loss of microstrip and coplanar waveguide lines fabricated on this material were 0.29dB/mm and 0.242dB/mm at 170GHz (best reported compared to state of the art at this frequency). This work was presented by Ph.D. student Nahid Aslani-Amoli at the 71st ECTC conference, 2021. Read here.
Alumina Ribbon Ceramic Material: (Left) Measured Dielectric Constant; and (Right) Measured Dielectric Loss.
ELECTROMAGNETICS SIMPLIFIES PACKAGING
Methods to simplify models have a direct implication on the computational engines to be supported which in turn affects the packaging technologies required. Here we present an example of a high-performance radar emulator system where the objects are represented using point scatterer models, which in turn are used to support doppler radar computations in a custom designed accelerator chip on an organic substrate. Using an optimized 3D anisotropic scatterer model to determine the angular dependence of the radar cross section (RCS) from multiple scatterers, we represent the RCS data of complex targets (stationary and moving) using models that greatly simplify computations. Based on support from the DARPA DRBE program, this work was presented at the 2021 IEEE Radar Conference by Ph.D. student Eric Huang. Read here.
Electromagnetic Computational Model: (Left) Point separable radar model; and (Right) 2D polar plots computed from simplified model and compared with Electromagnetic (EM) simulator
Faculty Highlight
Mark D. Losego is an Associate Professor and MSE Faculty Fellow in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research lab focuses on materials processing and developing novel organic-inorganic hybrid materials for electronics, sustainable energy, and technical textile applications. His research largely focuses on the use of vapor phase processes to make and modify materials (e.g., atomic layer deposition [ALD], vapor phase infiltration [VPI], and physical vapor deposition [PVD]), with particular interest in understanding how to scale these processes for manufacturing.
Prof. Losego has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and 2 awarded patents. He has been recognized with multiple awards including the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award and Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award. He is also the faculty founder for The Materials Innovation and Learning Laboratory (The MILL), an open-access, student-run make-and-measure space for experiential education in materials science (https://mill.mse.gatech.edu), which is used by many of the PRC undergraduate researchers for the characterization and property measurements of their materials.
Student SPOTLIGHT
Ahmet Mete Muslu (Ph.D. ME) was awarded the Nasser Grayeli Outstanding Poster Award at the ASME 2021 InterPACK Conference held in October 26-28. His poster titled “Exploration of Multi-Physics Design Trade-offs in a Multi-Chip SiC MOSFET Module with Integrated Cooling” provides a detailed study of the electro-thermal behavior of a novel integrated power module and the impact of high-power delivery through multi-functional cold plates. “Critical current level” is found to be a key parameter, because of which localized hot spots are generated in electrical busbars. Multi-physics design trade-offs are explored, and extended busbar cooling is suggested as a potential solution to reliably drive future power modules at higher power density levels.
Osama Waqar Bhatti and Oluwaseyi I. Akinwande, both Ph.D. students in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, were awarded the Best Student Paper Award at the 2021 Electrical Design of Advanced Packaging and Systems (EDAPS) Symposium organized by the IEEE Electronics and Packaging Society (EPS). Their award-winning paper was titled: “Comparison of Invertible Architectures for High-Speed Channel Design”.
Upcoming & RECENT Events
- Distinguished Lecture (Virtual): Design Methodology Challenges for Large-Scale Chiplet Assemblies presented by Professor Puneet Gupta, University of California Los Angeles, December 9, 2021 at 11:00 AM EST/ 8:00 AM PST.
- PRC Industry Advisory Board (Hybrid) Meeting held November 18 and 19, 2021. A total of 140 attendees participated in the event.