According to SEMI, the $18 billion semiconductor packaging materials will undergo steady single-digit unit volume growth for many material segments through 2019, including laminate substrates, IC leadframes, underfill, and copper wire. Segments such as wafer-level packaging (WLP) dielectrics will experience stronger unit volume growth over the same timeframe.
The new report by SEMI and TechSearch International covers laminate substrates, leadframes, bonding wire, mold compounds, underfill materials, liquid encapsulants, die attach materials, solder balls, wafer level package dielectrics, and thermal interface materials.
Packaging materials are a key enabler to increasing the functionality of thinner, smaller packages consumed in smart phones and other mobile products.
Many options are currently available to meet form factor requirements for mobile products such as stacked-die chip scale package (CSP), land grid array (LGA) and fine pitch ball grid array (FBGA) packages, package-on-package (PoP), wafer-level package (WLP), Quad Flat No-lead (QFN) and other packages, using both wirebond and flip chip interconnects.
Constrained industry growth and the trend towards lower-cost electronics have reshaped the packaging material supplier landscape. Changes in material sets, the emergence of new package types, and cost reduction pressures have resulted in recent consolidation in various material segments. In addition, materials consumption in some segments is declining given the changes in package form factors and the trend towards smaller, thinner packaging.
In addition, SEMI pointed that despite the reduction in roaming costs in a number of markets, operators will still face a sizeable base of ‘ingrained’ silent roamers, who either switch off roaming services all together or use alternative services such as Wi-Fi or local-SIMs.
The number of In-Flight and Maritime roamers using mobile services while on-board an aircraft or a cruise-line will continue to increase, but represent a small proportion of total mobile operator roaming revenue.
