A Study of Applying RFID for Heat Block Management in IC Packaging Factory

In the integrated circuit (IC) packaging process, including operations of die sawing, die bonding, wire bonding, molding, plating, marking, trim/form, and inspection. Purposes of packaging include protecting ICs, making ICs easier to handle, and connecting ICs to the circuit outside. The wire bond stations are the bottleneck in the packaging and assemble process where the heat block is the key auxiliary parts in the stations. This research proposes a RFID-enabled Heat Block Management System (RHMS) to accurately control the progress of the IC packaging production line to meet the customer requirements. Our research analyzed all the flows of heat block management operations during before and after introducing RHMS. Hypothesis testing can verify significant difference between two sample sizes. Based on the statistics test of hypothesis, we compared the difference for before and after introducing RHMS. The results show that the RHMS can bring advantage for heat block management in wire bond stations. Moreover, it has clear improvement of saving counting and revising operation time. The contributions of this research are not only a case study but also a direction for applying RFID technology on IC packaging industry.