Dr. Michael Toepper of Fraunhofer IZM was honoured with the European SEMI Award for 2007 for his leadership in the BCB-based redistribution technology in advanced wafer level packaging. The award was presented on May 23 during the SEMI Europe Member Forum, the annual meeting of SEMI Members in Europe.

Dr. Toepper played a key role in implementing the concept of wafer level packaging into manufacturing. Wafer level packaging consists of finalizing the packaging sequence on the complete wafer rather than on the die. This helps avoid the increasing inefficiency of the packaging process of single chips as a result of too many interconnections between the bond pads and the frame. This technology can be combined with ‘wafer bumping’ technology, which refers to distributing bond pads evenly over the wafer surface, rather than just at the chip periphery. Dr. Toepper and his team have significantly contributed to implementing these technologies. “Today, the chip package is no longer a commodity, it is an enabler for the interconnectivity of integrated systems, as a result of a number of bright ideas and innovations,” said Heinz Kundert, president, SEMI Europe. “SEMI is honoured to grant the European SEMI Award to one of the greatest innovators in the field of packaging.”

Dr. Toepper holds a PhD in material science from the Technical University of Berlin and heads a research group at Fraunhofer IZM, which specializes in wafer level processes. Since 2006 he has also served as a Research Associate Professor at the University of Utah. He has authored and co-authored more than 130 papers related to electronic packaging, and is a co-founder of the SECAP International Consortium for Advanced Packaging, and currently chairing the IEEE Technical Committee of Wafer Level Packaging.