The specialty glass powerhouse expands FLEXINITY® portfolio of structured glass to Advanced Packaging.

With FLEXINITY® connect, glass circuit boards can solve many of the data latency and manufacturing issues that have plagued the semiconductor industry while reducing costs. Its versatility benefits applications like datacenters, the Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous vehicles, and medical diagnostics.

SCHOTT, the inventor of specialty glass and international technology group, introduced FLEXINITY® connect as the latest innovation in the advanced packaging industry. With FLEXINITY® connect, ultra-fine structured glass brings a game-changing element to semiconductor manufacturing, which has traditionally used printed circuit boards (PCB) and silicon interposers for advanced chip packaging solutions.

The combination of silicon and copper clad laminates are too expensive, have low electrical performance, and only limited reliability.

Thanks to its properties, a glass circuit board can improve signal performance and reduce signal latency, while maintaining virtually the same build-up as the interposer package. It is cost-efficient and allows the embedding of passive components, which minimizes the thermal load of the package and simultaneously shrinks the overall package size.

“SCHOTT’s long history of industry changing innovations enters a new chapter with FLEXNITY® connect.” Said Dr. Tobias Gotschke, Senior Manager New Ventures at SCHOTT. “Replacing a printed circuit board with a glass core package requires a significant amount of adaptation in the supply chain and offers many benefits. The flexible positioning of through glass vias, or TGVs, allows for unmatched design freedom. Using SCHOTT’s glass and structuring capability provides a faster ramp-up in manufacturing with higher yields.”

FLEXINITY® connect offers versatility in format, allowing for a wide spectrum of applications. With a thickness range from 0.1 mm to 1.1 mm, a maximum size of 600 mm, and up to millions of holes with a radius of as little as 25 µm which is thinner than a human hair, the new product can be used in nearly any capacity.

For high performance computing applications like datacenters and artificial intelligence, FLEXINITY® connect increases efficiencies for higher computing power with large thermal loads. In mobile and IoT applications, FLEXINITY® connect offers ubiquitous and fast wireless communication, enabled by the integration of antenna in package (AiP) for higher frequencies in the GHz regime and optimized materials for broad bandwidth in all climate zones. Further prospective use-cases include autonomous driving and medical diagnostics.