CSP so hot, how long will it take to become mainstream?

[LED] CSP LED Chinese network into people's horizon is one or two days, the launch from Lumileds to now almost chip companies have been involved in, and even packaging enterprises have been involved, but CSP is used in lighting is still very rare.

For the CSP concept of hot, not just in terms of reducing costs to improve its performance, but from it into the LED industry to "go out of the packaging enterprise life" and fire. But if you want to compete with the current LED products, I am afraid not so fast.

The advantages of price war upgrade CSP highlights

CSP full name Chip Scale Package, also known as chip level packaging. The traditional definition of the technology is that the packaging volume is the same as that of the LED wafer, or the packaging component is not more than LED wafer 20%, and the function is complete.

In the traditional semiconductor industry has for years, according to the development of the traditional semiconductor package structure, the experienced TO - DIP - LCC - QFP - BGA to CSP. The main purpose of this technology is to reduce the package volume, improve the reliability of the chip and improve the wafer cooling.

And since entering this year, the LED industry is gradually moving towards maturity, the competitive advantage of conventional LED packaging products gradually increased to fight price. According to the TrendForce's green energy division LEDinside display, Q2 lighting products, the mainstream of the market decline reached 2835, 10~17%, the main specifications of 0.5W price decline is to reach 17%, visible LED price war has entered the era of mass.

With the advent of the era of large-scale cost-effective, whether it is a large listed companies or focus on the field of small and medium enterprises, there are different competition. In today's lighting market, we race to cut prices, the packaging device has been forced to hit the banner of promotion, in order to quickly occupy the high ground of the LED lighting market. CSP can be described as homeopathy, to a large extent, solve the customer requirements for product costs.

Contrast CSP can be directly applied to the ultimate goal of the client's PCB board, the current CSP development is still in its infancy. But once CSP realized this ultimate goal, will effectively shorten the heat flow path heat source to the substrate so as to reduce the light resistance, then either from the price or stability, are better than the current LED.

From the industry point of view CSP Mature cycle, because it has no base, free welding line, small volume and light density etc., omitting some of the intermediate links, so the cost is greatly reduced, the elimination of some uncertainty. In addition, due to the existing traditional semiconductor technology has matured, when applied in the field of LED, it is natural to shorten the maturity of its technology.

The difference between CSP and traditional packaging

From a technical point of view, because CSP is very early use in the backlight and flash, the technical problems of their own does not exist, but because of the mass production yield is not high, resulting in high cost is the current problem. With the optimization and upgrading of technical equipment, said it may not be possible to completely replace CSP, but definitely not just those special areas before the market share, future applications will be more widely, especially in the lighting industry.

Yield control of process maturity is the key

As we all know, as a high technology content of CSP, how to cut, or the entry point and the choice of catch up is crucial. If one is too advanced technical level of difficulty and the risk is too large, probably nothing; second is the demand from the market perspective, it is not enough to achieve the support force of the market, there is no market or technology leads to a relatively small market caused by the blank period. On the contrary, if too backward, not only with the global LED industry level gap is growing, resulting in the waste of resources, but also from the mainstream market demand.

Here, have to mention or refer to ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors international semiconductor technology roadmap) technology node concept. The concept is defined as "significant progress in the process".

For the current CSP lighting market in the field of the reasons for the low cost is not high. The reason for this is not high depends on the process. CSP due to the small size of the product, the mechanical strength of the congenitally deficient, the material sorting test process is difficult, SMT mounting technical requirements of higher technical barriers, resulting in low yield of finished products. Therefore, the application of CSP packaging for lighting manufacturers is a new topic, there are still many problems to be solved.

In this regard, latticepower Zhao Hanmin also said that although the CSP technology to reduce or even remove the bracket, reduces the packaging cost, but also has a better morphology and luminescence characteristics of the heat dissipation function, in many applications are very attractive, but due to their small chip, the SMT equipment precision requirement is high, not support protection. The patch package is more vulnerable than traditional limitations, so that CSP will develop in some areas more quickly, while in other areas will be relatively slow.

Although that said, but before the contrast of the traditional white light LED development, CSP technology maturity cycle should be shorter than the original LED formal maturity cycle.

From the current investment LED business point of view, in the mature LED products, technology has been perfected. Although CSP are still in the research and development stage, but the current LED companies are not just the time to contact LED, many of them currently not only have many years of industry experience, but also a number of mergers and acquisitions