STTR Phase II: Miniature Precision Stage for High Throughput Hybrid Bonding

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project is to develop a small form-factor precision stage to enable the high-volume manufacturing of next generation high-performance computing devices utilizing 3D stacked chiplets. Semiconductor advanced packaging technologies with stacked chiplets are expected to be the main driving force extending compute capability growth in the coming decades. The outcome of this project will provide a key building block to enable the production of high interconnect density devices with high throughput, thus lowering their costs for adoption in both automobile use cases, and also customer mobile devices. This project may also demonstrate the general feasibility of the underlying actuator technology, paving way for its development and applications in other fields of robotics. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project focuses on designing, fabricating, and characterizing a small form-factor precision stage prototype to support high accuracy and high throughput chiplet-to-wafer hybrid bonding. The team will design the device to achieve 100 nm positioning precision along each motion axis, to enable accurate chiplet placement with a motion range of 1 mm, and 20 degrees within a compact footprint of 10 mm on each side. The project tasks include developing sub-components for both linear and rotational motions, the fabrication of these sub-components, and their final assembly into functional test units. The team will develop control electronics to operate the multi-degrees-of-freedom units, incorporating position measurement systems utilizing optical imaging and/or capacitance measurements. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.