ITEC and Nexperia will deliver a vision on the NXTGEN Chip Assembly Equipment and Technologies for Advanced Packaging.
Speakers: Joep Stokkermans (ITEC), René Poelma (Nexperia)
The lack of an economically competitive back-end poses a major obstacle to Europe’s semiconductor autonomy. Global supply chains for all types of chips are proving critical to our economy: from the simplest circuits to the most complex processors. Therefore, the ability to produce all these types of chips is a prerequisite for an autonomous semiconductor industry. Europe’s ambition for semiconductor sovereignty implicitly necessitates the need for cost-effective, high-volume production. This can be achieved in a so-called dark factory in the Netherlands.
Today, panel-level back-end processes exist that, at the same production volume, can outperform existing back-ends that produce on all kinds of metal strips. These panel-level processes can reduce or even eliminate complexity in the back-end. Electrical connections are achieved through lithography and surface treatments. Material use is functional, and waste is minimal, which aligns with European objectives.
With its global players like ASML, BESI, NXP, Nexperia and ITEC, the Netherlands holds the best assets in this regard, in Europe and perhaps even the entire world. Our companies are market leaders and are supported by a specialized high-tech ecosystem of dozens of companies and knowledge institutes. With the right high-tech equipment and panel-level processes, we can ensure that chips from the Netherlands are and remain affordable, especially in the high-volume segment. This requires harnessing the innovative power of the Dutch high-tech sector to overcome the last remaining technical and economic barriers. For example, in the NXTGEN Semicon program, ITEC and TNO are developing revolutionary chip equipment that allows panels to be produced up to a 100x times more efficiently using lasers. What’s stopping us from leading the way?