Win at 30% thickness, allowing TSMC to eat three generations of apples
In the early years, Apple’s iPhone processor has been the imprisonment of Samsung. However, TSMC has been able to start orders from A11 and have successively taken orders for two generations of iPhone processors.
One of the keys is Yu Zhenhua’s “Integrated Links and Packaging” department. The new packaging technology developed by InFO enables direct link between chips and chips to reduce the thickness and free up valuable mobile space for batteries or other parts.
Yu Zhenhua explained that the thickness of the mobile phone processor package can be as thick as 1.3, 1.4 mm in the past. “Our first generation InFO is less than 1 mm,” Yu Zhenhua said. It is also a 30% reduction in thickness.
“He asked TSMC to take orders from three generations of Apple,” said Lu Chaoqun, former chairman of the Semiconductor Association and Yu Zhenhua, who is familiar with the company.
Time back to the third quarter of TSMC in 2011. At that time, Zhang Zhongmou had no hurry to throw a shocking bomb - TSMC wants to enter the packaging field.
The first product, called "CoWoS" (Chip on Wafer on Substrate), means that the logic chip and DRAM are placed on a silicon interposer and then packaged on a substrate.
He mentioned that "depending on this technology, our business model will be to provide a full range of services. We intend to make the whole chip!"
This news immediately spread the global semiconductor industry.
After combing his suit, Yu Zhenhua, whose appearance looks like a civil servant, has also been intensively appearing at major technical seminars at home and abroad since then. He has vigorously promoted his own invention and named the new technology.
At that time, the reporter of “The World” was also impressed with the director. Because he talked eloquently, even the appearance of tongues and wars was very different from the low-key style of the general TSMC.
The foundry leader announced its entry into the downstream market. The market immediately questioned the prospects of the sealing and testing professional factory.
At Moonlight, silicon products had to be disinfected everywhere. It was said that CoWoS technology can only be used in a very small number of specific high-end products with limited impact.
Yu Zhenhua will happily go home. "All future high-end products will be used. The market is very big."
The dissatisfaction of the seal-measurement circles gradually accumulated. It finally broke out in a technical seminar.
A director of silicon product R&D started after Yu Zhenhua’s speech. “You mean that we have no food for the future. Don't you need to do anything?” Let the host of the conference rush out to play round.
Soon afterwards, Yu Zhenhua suddenly disappeared in public. “We want to say how he vanished. Later, I heard that Zhang Zhongmou came out and asked Yu Zhenhua to make a low-key point,” said the head of a large-scale factory of packaging and testing, who declined to be named.
At the time, the immediate supervisor of Yu Zhenhua, the chief operating officer of the front-end CCTV, Jiang Shangyi, accepted an interview with “The World” to explain the ins and outs of TSMC entering the field of packaging and testing.
It turned out that in 2009, Zhang Zhongmou returned to the post of chief executive and asked the retired Jiang Shangyi to regain control of R&D. One of the main tasks at that time was to develop so-called advanced packaging technology.
"Because Moore's Law has begun to slow down, there is still much room for improvement in terms of circuit board and packaging, from the entire electronic system," he said.
In the past decades, the dazzling light of Moore's Law has made the progress of other parts of the entire electronic system seem insignificant. The development focus of the packaging industry has therefore been shifted to reducing costs, and there has been no major technological breakthrough for a long time. For example, the mainstream of the industry Technology - flip chip, technology developed 50 years ago.
Zhang Zhongmou strongly supported and allocated 400 R&D engineers to Yu Zhenhua. He also lived up to expectations. Two years later, CoWoS technology was successfully developed.
However, until the start of mass production, there was only one major customer who actually placed orders - Xilinx, a programmable logic gate array (FPGA) manufacturer.
At this time, even Jiang Pei, who was extremely high in the ranks of TSMC, felt internal pressure. “(It seems to be) Someone boasts about the sea, has a lot of resources, and made a useless thing,” he recalls.
Chong Chong Chong, grabbed Apple's fertilizer from Samsung
It's especially critical whether you can take orders for iPhone processors.
This is the world's first fertilizer list, which has been monopolized by Samsung for many years. For example, the A7 processor for the iPhone 5s was produced in volume in 2013. The black resin was used in the ultra-thin package on package (PoP) package. One gigabyte directly was used. The capacity of the DRAM is stacked with the processor package.
Samsung is the only semiconductor manufacturer in the world that can mass produce memory and processors, and also has its own packaging and testing plant. By this system, the entire A7 processor can be completed under “one roof”, which has great advantages in cost and integration.
Therefore, even though the threat posed by Samsung Galaxy smartphones to Apple is getting bigger and bigger, Apple still can't get rid of its dependence on rivals. Until iPhone 6s in 2016, despite the introduction of TSMC, it still had to OEM the Samsung processor. Orders.
The introduction of CoWoS technology theoretically allows the processor to lose up to 70% of its thickness. However, customers are happier.
One day, Jiang Shangyi and a “big customer” burst into a total dinner. The other party told him that this kind of technology should be accepted and the price should not exceed 1 cent per square kilogram.
But the price of CoWoS is more than 5 times this figure.
TSMC immediately decided to develop an advanced packaging technology with 1 cents per square centimeter. The performance could be slightly worse than that of CoWoS.
"I'll rush hard," Yu Zhenhua said. He decided to switch to "subtraction" to make the CoWoS structure as simple as possible, and finally come up with a streamlined design.
Yu Zhenhua immediately reported to Jiang Shangyi and took a picture on the whiteboard to explain to him: “I haven’t finished the last few sentences. Jiang Dad has no concern, and immediately ran to speak with the chairman and dig a big gold mine.” He recalled.
This is the first time InFO packaging technology has been used in iPhone 7 and 7Plus. This technology is the main key for TSMC's orders.
Moreover, not only a generation, including the iPhone X listed a few months ago, this year's next new models. A foreign analyst said that more and more signs show that even 2019, Apple's new products in 2020, TSMC eats all The possibilities are getting higher and higher.
A senior director of packaging and testing plants who had also participated in Apple's orders believes that Samsung is "a loss of Jingzhou."
When TSMC came up with InFO and Samsung, whose packaging experience was more than TSMC's, misjudged, it was thought that by simply improving the existing PoP technology, Apple could achieve the required thickness level.
Therefore, after missing out on the initiative, Samsung will have to catch up with its own version of InFO technology.
Breaking the Impossibility, "Little Daughter" Makes Great Contributions
In November 2016, when the iPhone 7 with InFO technology was shipped for the first time, TSMC announced that he had made great contributions. He was promoted to Deputy General Manager of Integrated Connectivity and Packaging.
"No one looked good at the beginning," Yu Zhenhua said.
One of the predecessors of TSMC who was the head of the packaging plant told him in person.
First of all, it is difficult for the cost to compete with the packaging and testing plants. Because the packaging plant is also developing similar technologies, the human cost of TSMC is far higher than that of the packaging industry. Therefore, the product gross margin is required to reach 50%. However, only 20% of silicon products can be used at the date of the company. Done.
Foreign analysts also saw the decline. For example, Mark Li, an American analyst at Bernstein Securities, wrote at the time: “InFo will make TSMC more competitive with Intel and Samsung? No, we do not think so. "
He believes that the experience and technology that Samsung and Intel have accumulated in the packaging field are far better than those of TSMC, which was just getting started. For example, Intel and Samsung have the second largest number of patents in the "fan-out wafer-level packaging", and three. Ji Lian’s top ten are in line.
All these negative opinions are justified. Why did Yu Zhenhua reversal of the universe and complete this "impossible mission"?
He gave an unexpected answer, "I want to lose. I have nothing to lose."
He leaned back on the sofa in the interview location and smiled badly.
It turned out that during that time, it was the bottom of his life.
Yu Zhenhua was the first batch of returnees of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and the time of joining was even earlier than that of Jiang Shangyi.
After studying at the Tsinghua University, Tsinghua University studied in the United States. After receiving a Ph.D. in materials from the Georgia Institute of Technology, he worked at the famous Bell Labs as a semiconductor researcher. He joined TSMC in the early 1990s and was the director of Advanced Microsystem Technology and the Director of Advanced Module Technology.
One of the former semiconductor owners known to him pointed out that Yu Zhenhua was "at the forefront of technology," and TSMC's CMP (chemical mechanical planarization) process was established by him.
TSMC's previous milestone was a successful mass production in 2003. Since then, it has drastically opened the 0.13 micron gap with UMC.
At that time, six executives of the 0.13 micron technical team commended by the Executive Yuan, Yu Zhenhua's business was converted to copper conductors and low-dielectric substances, which were classified as "post-stage" processes.
The advanced module technology that he was responsible for at the time was headed by Liang Mengsong, who later defected to Samsung.
He invested the most resources from the semiconductor plant. The first-stage process R&D that had the greatest impact on product performance was moved to the latter stage for several years. He eventually settled on the “semiconductor industry's production transfer”—package.
In this ultra-high-pressure industry that pursued Moore's Law with the continuous "miniaturization" as its main mission, this is equivalent to being exiled from the frontier areas of the most highly anticipated first-class theater.
After giving a deep breath, Yu Zhenhua said, “There were not many people in the beginning. I did it in the first and last paragraphs. Afterwards, the talented people got up again. I always retired, retired, and retired to the package.”
Burned several thousand wafers in 5 years to create the era of CoWoS packaging
Yu Zhenhua disclosed that during that time not only did the work change greatly, but even the family and family members also appeared in a situation where life was at a low ebb, and he was determined to burn off the boat.
TSMC's InFo and CoWoS are both "wafer-level packaging" technologies, that is, they are packaged directly on silicon wafers. Therefore, they can be significantly reduced in size and improved in performance.
As the world's first semiconductor manufacturer to mass-produce wafer-level packaging, TSMC is at the forefront and there are endless technical challenges to solve. For example, the thorny issue of Warpage.
A senior executive in the packaging industry who also participated in Apple's order revealed that TSMC paid a high tuition fee and that the production line burned thousands of expensive wafers in five years.
"I've heard that the yield rate has not been increased until it reached 80% last year." A TSMC chief account executive also said.
From the beginning of 2016, Yu Zhenhua's long-standing persistence has finally begun to see the dawn.
A large number of CoWoS's new customers have appeared. His predictions for the year have come true: The newest, highest-end chips, really need to use CoWoS.
Because CoWoS can increase the performance of such products by 3 to 6 times.
This year, Nvidia launched the company's first drawing chip GP100 in CoWoS package, which kicked off the recent wave of artificial intelligence. Including, the following year AlphaGo defeated the Google artificial intelligence chip TPU 2.0 behind the world chess king Ke Jie. , These world-leading performance, highest-cost artificial intelligence chips, are CoWoS packages, manufactured by TSMC.
Even at the end of 2017, Intel launched a partnership with Facebook to challenge Huida's monopoly of Nervana-like neural network processors.
"Without CoWoS, recently such a big wave of AI will not come out so quickly," Yu Zhenhua said proudly. He also said that CoWoS's production capacity is now in short supply.
He also disclosed that there are still several secret weapons in his hand and they will appear one after another in the future.
In the past few years, outsiders watched the competition between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Samsung Electronics, and Intel’s Sanxiong. Their visions were set at 7nm, the progress of dream technologies such as EUV. As a result, the previously unimpressive packaging and testing department now seems to have become TSMC’s rejection of Samsung’s Intel. The main differences.
After all, it was due to Yu Zhenhua’s "persistence."
"I think he is a model," said a TSMC executive. "If people are so smart and capable, but the company moves around in personnel, he doesn't complain. If you send me to do anything, then you do it. But I must do it." do the best. "