In-line plasma cleaning equipment: significant benefits for IC packaging performance

With the continuous development of microelectronics technology, processor chips run at ever higher frequencies, offer ever more powerful functions and have ever more pins, while chip feature sizes keep shrinking and package sizes keep changing. To improve product performance, in-line plasma cleaning equipment is gradually becoming widespread. So what does this equipment consist of, and how does it work on the production line?

In-line plasma cleaner — in-line plasma cleaning equipment offers low cost, ease of use, low maintenance cost and environmental friendliness. Its substrate surface treatment is mainly aimed at IC packaging production processes, such as wire bonding and flip-chip packaging. It automatically takes flexible boards out of the magazine and plasma-cleans them, removing contamination from the material surface without human intervention.

Since this equipment is so effective, let's take a detailed look at the process flow of in-line plasma cleaning equipment:

(A) Four magazines filled with flexible boards are placed on the load/unload platform, and the pusher pushes the front strip out onto the loading/unloading conveyor system.

(B) The loading/unloading conveyor system transfers the strip, via pinch rollers and belt conveyance, onto the upper stage of the material exchange platform, where it is positioned by the strip-shifting system.

(C) The stage holding the received strip is exchanged to a position below the plasma reaction chamber, and the lifting system closes the vacuum chamber, pumps it down and plasma-cleans the strip. While the upper stage is moved to the cleaning position, the lower stage is moved to the loading position to receive the second layer of strips. When the upper stage has finished cleaning, it swaps positions with the lower stage: the lower stage is plasma-cleaned, while the upper stage moves to the loading position to return its strip.

(D) The strips on the material exchange platform are shifted by the strip-shifting system onto the loading/unloading conveyor system and returned to the magazine via pinch rollers and belt, completing one cycle. The pusher mechanism then pushes out the next layer of strips for the next cycle.

In-line plasma cleaners and their processes are being used more and more widely in IC packaging, and with their excellent process performance they have driven rapid technological development in the microelectronics industry. In line with the needs of modern high technology, in-line plasma cleaning technology will continue to raise its technical level, improve product performance and expand into more application areas.