Fan-Out Packaging with Thin-film Inductors

Abstract

Fan-out Wafer Level Packaging is widely and commonly adopted to ease implementation for low-cost packaging. It offers an enhanced solution of standard wafer-level packaging (WLP), which gained popularity for its application in embedding integrated circuitry into smaller packaging approaches. This development involves the study of voltage regulators using an integrated thin-film inductor technology with a laminated magnetic core. Voltage regulators are essential devices in microprocessors, systems-on-chip, and other electronic components to maintain the consistency in the desired operating voltage for the circuits. The inductors and regulators can be co-optimized for achieving good electrical performance. For demonstrating the FOWLP integration of the voltage regulator, the thin-film inductors are embedded into a Fan-out package along with the CMOS controller ASIC. The packaging solution targets to provide high-efficiency power conversion. The electrical characterization results indicated that the low-loss inductor with a peak quality factor of 21 is useful in high-efficiency power conversion.