Hanwha Semitec expressed its ambition to secure leadership in the next-generation advanced semiconductor packaging equipment market by launching its second-generation hybrid bonder early next year.
Hanwha Semitec said on the 10th that it announced a development roadmap for next-generation advanced semiconductor packaging equipment embodying this blueprint at Semicon Taiwan 2025, an international semiconductor expo held in Taipei, Taiwan's capital, for three days through the 12th (local time).
According to the roadmap, Hanwha Semitec plans to launch the second-generation hybrid bonder SHB2 Nano and the fluxless bonder SFM5 Expert+ early next year. Unlike conventional methods, the hybrid bonder is equipment that applies next-generation packaging technology to maximize input/output performance and support higher bandwidth and high stacking through direct "copper-to-copper" consolidation. The fluxless bonder is equipment that bonds DRAM without flux, a cleaning material.
Both pieces of equipment can reduce HBM thickness compared with the TC bonder, a key tool currently required for high bandwidth memory (HBM) manufacturing, and minimize electrical signal loss to improve performance and production efficiency. In particular, the hybrid bonder is receiving the greatest attention in the semiconductor equipment market and is considered essential for manufacturing high-stacked chips of 20 layers or more.
Hanwha Semitec said the second-generation hybrid bonder can achieve precision alignment with a positional error margin at the 0.1 μm (micrometer) level during bonding. This is thanks to its ultra-precision bonding technology, which is just one-thousandth of the thickness of a strand of hair (about 100 μm).
Park Young-min, head of the semiconductor equipment division at Hanwha Semitec, said, "Hanwha Semitec successfully delivered first-generation equipment to a client in 2022," adding, "We are preparing so that the second-generation equipment under development can be evaluated by clients in the first quarter of next year."
By launching next-generation equipment such as the hybrid bonder, Hanwha Semitec plans to establish a comprehensive semiconductor equipment lineup that can flexibly respond to the requirements of global integrated device manufacturers (IDM) and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test companies (OSAT).
Hanwha Semitec said it has been achieving consecutive results in the semiconductor packaging equipment market, including winning a contract this year to supply TC bonder equipment worth about 80.5 billion won from SK hynix.
This is a large-scale contract achieved about five years after starting TC bonder development in 2020. In the second quarter of this year, Hanwha Semitec's semiconductor-related sales increased more than 15-fold from a year earlier. In addition, as of the first half of this year, semiconductor-related research and development (R&D) investment was about 30 billion won, up 40% from last year, and during the same period it rose to about 15% of sales.
A Hanwha Semitec official said, "For Hanwha Semitec, which is relatively a latecomer, developing innovative technology is the most important to gain unrivaled competitiveness," adding, "We will accelerate technology development and establish ourselves as a leading, comprehensive semiconductor manufacturing solutions corporations."