Chip packaging and testing: mature field in local semiconductors

It is reported that Huawei and ZTE are intentionally moving the supply chain to the mainland. Currently, 5G base station chips have been packaged and tested in the mainland, but they are still in the stage of engineering approval. After the packaging is completed in the packaging factory, the products are shipped back directly . ZTE does the testing work internally and controls the test data, and the real mass production should be in the third quarter. At this stage, several large packaging and testing manufacturers are actively seizing orders.

Taiwan media recently reported that ASE, the world's leading semiconductor packaging and testing manufacturer based on 2.5D / interposer technology, has entered the ZTE supply chain and won ZTE's independent development of 5G base station chip mass production orders. It is reported that ASE's panel-level fan-out packaging (FOPLP) had obtained Huawei HiSilicon's packaging and testing orders in the first half of 2019.

      Since the second half of 2019, a new round of semiconductor boom has been basically established and kicked off globally. For IC practitioners in mainland China, the logic of Huawei's turnaround and industrial transfer will further strengthen the current economic cycle and make its interpretation  more vivid in mainland China. As the most mature field in the local semiconductor industry chain, the packaging and testing link has more certainty in order acceptance.

On January 24, 2019, Huawei released the industry's first 5G base station chip, the Tiangang chip, at the Beijing Research Institute. The size of this chip is reduced by 55% and the weight is reduced by 23%. For the first time, under the extremely low sky size specifications, it supports large-scale integration of active PA (power amplifier) and passive array; to achieve 2.5 times the improvement of computing power, adopted the latest algorithm and beamforming (beam forming), a single chip can control up to 64 channels which is the highest level in the industry . supports ultra-wide spectrum, can support 200M bandwidth,can allow 90% of the world's sites to achieve 5G without modifying the city's circuit network. It is expected to reduce the weight of 5G base stations by half.

      At the same time, the chip has brought a revolutionary improvement to AAU, reducing the size of base stations by more than 50%, reducing weight by 23%, and saving power consumption by 21%. The installation time is half of standard 4G base stations,which effectively solving site acquisition difficult and costly challenges.

      Industry insiders said that 5G base station chips mainly use BGA packaging technology, and technical issues such as packaging speed, performance, and stability determine how many orders each can get.