Large Format Mcm-D Processing Adaptation of the Hughes Hdmi/sup TM/ Process to Large Format Mcm-D: Options, Problems, Results to Date

GM Hughes Electronics Company has been researching approaches to low cost manufacturing of Multichip Modules (MCM) for several years. Hughes engineers believe that the acceptance of MCM-D technology, and the advantages in performance and density it affords, will be accelerated once the cost is lowered below a level which will make it competitive with other MCM technologies. The performance benefits of MCM-D are well known, but as yet do not fully offset the perceived cost disadvantage which prevents its use in commercial products. Military customers need the volume generated by commercial applications to take advantage of the Cost Function Curve. The analysis of substrate cost as a function of production volume and the correlation to numbers of substrates per manufacturing unit, or panel, size will be discussed and the effects of defect density control emphasized Hughes has an IR&D project underway to define the technology, equipment, and process breakthroughs needed to commercialize MCM-D, and to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of fabricating HDMI/sup TM/ (High Density Multichip Interconnect) substrates on large panels. Hughes is currently building production quantites of 1.8-by-3.8 inch, densely routed substrate designs for military systems on alumina, silicon, and aluminum nitride ISO mm wafers. Hughes personnel believe that the published ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) goals of a factor of ten reduction in substrate cost and a factor of 10 increase in substrate capacity are achievable using the large panel format. The progress to date in this effort will be discussed, and the plans and problems discussed