A new packaging technology, developed at the Helsinki University of Technology in a programme sponsored by Nokia, has attracted $23m of venture capital to go into mass production in a purpose-built Korean factory.
The technology allows chips to be embedded in the substrate material of a PCB, and gets over the problem of pad-limitation.
"You can put the I/O pads anywhere on the surface of the die, you are not limited to putting pads on the periphery of the die", Jeff Baloun, CEO of Imbera which developed the technology, told Electronics Weekly.
Baloun says the technology will be used in mobile phones made by a major cellphone manufacturer next year.
Imbera has licensed the technology to Ibiden of Japan, the world's largest PCB manufacturer.
The only other source for getting Imbera's packaging technology manufactured, will be the new factory which Imbera intends to build next door to a PCB factory (as yet unnamed) in Korea. "Our intention is not to license anyone else for the time being", said Baloun.
The technology allows passive or active components, and bare dies, to be embedded in the PCB substrate. Standard assembly equipment can be used. The heat of the dies is dissipated through micro-vias.
According to Baloun, the technique cuts down the size of the PCB by 30 to 40 per cent with heat dissipation the same as, or better than, BGA packaging thermal characteristics.
The technology was originally developed as a graduate project at Helsinki University by Imbera's CTO Risto Tuominen, and Imbera's director of manufacturing Arni Kujala. It was funded by Nokia through the Finnish technology support initiative TEKES.
"We started manufacturing on a small prototype line in 2006", said Tuominen, "and in 2007 we got investors on-board." These are Index Ventures, Northzone, and Conor.
Before joining Imbera, Baloun used to be the CEO of the Welsh packaging operation Atlantic Technology, which was acquired by the Malaysian chip packaging and test company Unisem.
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