Die Banking
One of the Growing Solutions to Obsolescence
Semiconductor parts are being made obsolete, our objective is to hold bare die on a last time buy or project basis in our 'die bank' facility.
The benefits of this are:
- The effect of obsolete components will be minimised by holding sufficient bare silicon in wafer or bare die in waffle pack.
- The cost of stocking silicon in a bare die bank is far less than the cost of stocking packaged parts which include the costs of package, assembly and test.
- Homogeneity can be assured by holding stock of a single diffusion run.
- There is less chance of storage causing quality/reliability problems with bare die held in nitrogen than packaged parts held in normal ambient storage conditions
- Many standard semiconductor parts will be designed into a number of projects. Central funding and storage will enable all projects to access the bare die bank and consequentially the costs of setting up the die bank will be minimised and not fall on one project.
- Central funding will provide greater buying power with consequential price reduction
- Semiconductor life cycles (from design to obsolescence) are becoming shorter as the demand for Fab capacity increases.
- Many more ‘leading edge’ apparently direct replacements for obsolete semiconductors have fundamentally different secondary characteristics. Whilst they may perform the same basic function they are likely to be faster, less tolerant to Radiation effects, or less tolerant to noisy power or data sources.
- Having a strategic silicon bank in UK/Europe will be critical in the event of conflict or a trade war.
- It is much safer to store naked silicon for long periods than silicon in plastic packages. The plastic leaks out unwanted contaminants over time and these can effect the operation of the semiconductor.
- We have a large storage capacity and can store bare die products at two separate sites
- Product can be stored in special containers which are smoke and water resistant
- Bare die products can be stored for many years
- Customers own bare die product can be held
- Bare die products can be stored in customers own dedicated dry nitrogen store
- Generic parts can be manufactured into packaged product by Mintech Semiconductors or released to other assembly manufacturers
- We offer expertise in bare die and wafer handling