By Li Panpan

(JW Insights) Jul 13 -- German equipment manufacturer Manz AG showcased its adavanced packaging solution - FOPLP (Fan-Out Panel Level Packaging) - at the SEMICON China 2023 held in Shanghai earlier this month. It attracted attention from automotive chip manufacturers for its advantages in cost control and performance improvement.

In an interview with JW Insights, Dr. Li Yuzheng, assistant manager of the R&D Department of Manz AG Asia, noted that traditional packaging technology can be more costly for automotive chip suppliers in China, who face more control costs pressure. FOPLP (Fan-Out Panel Level Packaging) has different cost advantages compared to FOWLP（Fan-out Wafer Level Packaging) and FC-BGA packages. FOPLP is even 20% cheaper than traditional QFN packaging solutions. Therefore, FOPLP is expected to capture more market opportunities with automotive-grade chips switching from traditional packaging to advanced packaging, said Li.

Currently, Fan-out packaging accounts for only 10% of the entire advanced packaging market, and FOPLP solutions only account for 10% of the entire Fan-out market. There is still massive room for growth in the future.

With the increasingly fierce competition in the automotive chip market, automotive chip IDMs turn to FOPLP packaging technology to improve product performance and reduce costs. Moreover, most of them have their own packaging and testing plants. FOPLP technology is easier to penetrate among them in management decision-making and technology integration.

In addition to the traditional automotive chip manufacturers, the popularity of new energy vehicles in recent years has also spawned a large number of third-generation semiconductor manufacturers. Li said those companies are also potential adopters of the FOPLP technology. In addition, RF chip companies with increasingly high system integration are also potential clients.

In addition, the penetration speed and quality of FOPLP technology also depend on better packaging equipment and technology.

Li said that FOPLP equipment is generally customized based on clients' needs, so equipment suppliers must be able to provide full-process solutions. With years of experience, Manz AG's one-stop service can provide process technology development and equipment manufacturing, cover the entire production equipment line with automation integration of upstream and downstream equipment, and assist customers in equipment debugging and after-sales service after mass production.

Not long ago, the company released the industry's first FOPLP packaging technology RDL production line with a production area of 700x700mm, showing strong competitiveness in RDL wire layer yield and overall area utilization and significantly reducing packaging process cost.

It has assembled a verification production line in cooperation with an international IDM manufacturer and is preparing for mass production orders in the future.

Manz AG was founded in 1987 and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2006. It has a manufacturing subsidiary in Suzhou, eastern China's Jiangsu Province.