Strengthen Cross-Sector Partnerships

AIoT and 5G drive diverse industrial applications, requiring higher heterogeneous integration technologies to meet performance demands. Now, semiconductor manufacturers around the world are accelerating the development of heterogenous chip integration processes. In 2025, we will enter the 2nm advanced wafer node and the substrate interconnection pitch will be≦40µm, which will require more System-in-Package(SiP), small chips, and heterogeneous integrated package. Unimicron can provide a heterogeneous integration platform that support advanced substrates for IC carriers. In 2021, we began the development of a multi-chip heterogeneous integration package technology platform. The size of the package will gradually expand every year from the current 20mm x 20mm to 55mm x 55mm.

Develop Industry and Products

The COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020 and the border controls adopted by various countries had a strong impact on the global supply chain. Also, in response to the risks posed by climate change, net-zero emission targets have been established in countries around the world, which has led to major brands in the IT and communications industry demanding their supply chain to comply with RE100, which asks for 100% green energy use. The carbon rights and taxes that will follow these initiatives will affect where manufacturers set up their plants, and suppliers who do not develop clear carbon reduction strategies will be gradually eliminated from the industry chain in the future. The global industry chain will shift from being linked by geographic location and trade costs to being linked by environmental values and national security costs.

In the semiconductor industry, many large-scale companies are using major manufacturers from Japan, Korea, Europe and the United States. Unimicron has been working with equipment manufacturers (e.g. copper plating machines, etching machines) and material manufacturers (e.g. 5G substrate material manufacturers) to accelerate R&D on low carbon technologies for equipment and materials as well as to gain the capacity for independent R&D in order to strengthen the market competitiveness of products in response to market risks caused by climate change.

Strengthen Research and Development Relationships Between Industry, Academia and Research Institutes

Through industry-academia collaborations, we established new relationships to facilitate Taiwan’s industry-academia research. We have had long-term collaborations with universities in Taiwan, such as National Taiwan University, Tsinghua University, National Central University, Yuan Ze University, and more. The funding for industry-academia collaboration with Tsinghua University in 2021 was NT$8.8 million. We hope that this will allow the research results of the academic community to be effectively utilized, spur Taiwanese research institutions to conduct more research, and encourage interdisciplinary fundamental scientific research, so as to shorten the learning curve of our company’s R&D and help schools nurture future technology elites at the same time.

Drive the Industry to Set New Specifications

The platform development plan for 5G high-speed and high-frequency applications, advanced substrate platform for heterogeneous integrated IC carriers, high-end micro-LED carriers, and optoelectronic modules are all brand new projects. The industry has yet to establish a set of quality certification specifications or testing standards. We will continue to invest our development resources according to our clients’ development schedule to be the first to meet our clients’ standards and to become the industry benchmark for this technology platform so that the industry will make this technology platform as the standard process for the industry.

We maintain close cooperation with excellent material and equipment suppliers, introduce high-performance materials and cutting-edge equipment for new product development, and cooperate with domestic equipment firms. Especially, 5G higher-frequency communications and the Low Df material process of high frequencies signal loss need to cooperate with material suppliers early.

The global supply chain market is highly competitive, and the outcome of Unimicron and our suppliers’ joint effort in development has resulted in the advanced attainment of future key technologies, helping us to maintain a leading position in the industry. At the same time, it also helps to ensure that related industries in Taiwan can continue to remain to stand and in turn obtain key positions in the midst of fierce competition and industry chains in various countries becoming more autonomous and grouped.

In addition to working closely with research institutes (such as ITRI) and well-known universities such as National Taiwan University, Tsinghua University, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, National Central Taiwan University, Yuan Ze University, Chang Gung University and Chung Hua University, we have also joined system-in-package R&D consortiums initiated by IZM (Germany) and Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) to jointly develop several new products and technologies.

By combining academic theories with industrial production and development practices, the difference between theory and practice can be quickly reduced, and allow advanced academic research results to be effectively and seamlessly integrated into the field industrial technology. Also, an important part of industry-academia collaboration is the overall planning of the collaboration, including faculty, equipment exchange, graduate student training, and funding. By operating the research environment independently under the regulations of each academic unit, the academic community can make reasonable profits and attract more outstanding academic teams to join in, forming a virtuous cycle.

We received tax exemptions, investment tax credits and incentives for equipment, industry-specific subsidies, R&D investment credits from the government. For example, during the development period of "Panel-level ETS fine line Fan-out New Technology Development Program" of "A+ Industrial Innovation R&D Program" of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, we have led five companies to participate in the cooperation.

Government funding accelerates the development of Unimicron technologies and strengthens product competitiveness, such as introducing panel-level ETS fine line fan-out to the development of the multi-chip heterogeneous integrated packaging technology platform, which expands package size and will be applied to 5G high-frequency and high-speed communications as well as improve electrical performance. What’s more, the government can gain a good understanding of the R&D potential and development difficulties of domestic industries through this partnership, which will serve as the basis for future technology development policies.