Wafer Dicing
The initial phase of semiconductor assembly is wafer dicing. During fabrication, ICs are produced in arrays on silicon wafers that are later separated, or "diced," into discrete chips. Dicing requires precision sawing to cut grooves, or "streets," between each die location on the wafer. Modern dicing saws use diamond-coated blades just microns in width to cut along crystal lattice planes for the cleanest possible cut. Wafers are securely held and precisely indexed during dicing to maximize yield. Thinner wafers are increasingly common to allow for more die per wafer, necessitating even greater accuracy from dicing equipment and processes.

Chip Packaging
Once individual die are diced from the wafer, they undergo packaging. Semiconductor Assembly and Testing Services This seals and protects the delicate chip circuitry while providing connections to the external environment. Common packaging technologies include leadframe packages which use metal frames to support dies connected to pins or leads, and ball grid array (BGA) packages which place solder balls on the bottom surface for interface with printed circuit boards. Advanced 3D packaging stacks multiple die vertically or uses through-silicon vias for highly-dense interconnection. Selection of the appropriate packaging type depends on factors like chip function, density, and environment.

Electrical Testing
Comprehensive electrical testing is performed on packaged chips to ensure they meet design and functional specifications before customer shipment. Functional testing exercises chip circuitry to check for processing defects that may cause faults. Parametric testing precisely measures hundreds of electrical characteristics to validate performance parameters fall within targeted ranges. Additional testing includes scan testing which checks functionality at a transistor level for deeper debug. Specialized tests may evaluate characteristics like power consumption, signal integrity, ESD robustness, or thermal performance.

Reliability Testing
SATS providers also conduct reliability testing to verify packaged chips can withstand harsh operating conditions over their intended lifespan. Highly accelerated stress tests (HAST) subject samples to extreme temperatures and humidity to induce early failures. Burn-in tests operate parts at maximum ratings for extended durations to "burn-out" latent defects. Other tests evaluate resistance to shock/vibration, thermal shock, and electromigration. Carefully monitoring any parameter shifts during reliability testing provides critical data on anticipated field failure rates to help customers qualify parts for deployment in mission-critical or long-life applications.

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