In order for semiconductor companies to accommodate technology roadmap requirements and meet demand for advanced semiconductor chips with greater functionality, a trend toward greater collaboration between device makers and their packaging technology partners is fast becoming a 'norm,' said packaging leader Amkor Technology (Nasdaq: AMKR).

In keeping with its 35-year history of enabling advances in semiconductor technology to reach the system level, Amkor Technology today unveiled the industry's most comprehensive packaging technology roadmap, featuring a broad spectrum of solutions that include advances in chip scale packaging, high performance packaging and system in package (SiP) technologies.

The idea that packaging technology has become a key enabler to advanced microelectronic products is evident in the way device manufacturers are incorporating packaging designs early on in the device development cycle. According to Bruce Freyman, Amkor's executive vice president of operations, "In order to support the ongoing evolution that is occurring in wafer fabrication processes, packaging and test technology must keep pace, and that requires investment and know-how. Having access to advanced packaging technology allows IC designers to balance the rapid innovation occurring in the front end and therefore get their products to market quicker. From a packaging perspective, our new roadmap reflects Amkor's core expertise and ability to support virtually every type of advanced IC application."

Amkor is working with customers and systems manufacturers worldwide to develop, qualify and verify packaging solutions early in the new product development process. The outcome, it says, is a set of solutions that help provide the optimum package design for current and future generations of integrated circuits. Amkor's collaboration with leading foundry TSMC on 130 nm and 90 nm low-k processes is an example of these cooperative efforts.

Amkor says that its new roadmap also reflects an increasingly complex packaging environment for ICs used in high growth applications such as broadband, home networking, digital imaging and gaming, where size, functionality and cost are critical factors that drive adoption rates.

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