Tessera Announces A Smaller, Lower Cost, More Reliable Wafer-Level Digital Camera Module Packaging Technology

On Tuesday, March 18 at Image Sensors Europe Tessera Technologies Inc. announced the availability for licensing of its SHELLCASE^® MVP wafer-level packaging technology for digital camera modules.  This solution promises to significantly reduce the cost of camera, modules for cell phones, digital cameras, PDAs, Portable Media Payers, laptop PCs and countless other devices, including the numerous sensors used in automobiles.  In addition, it will improve yields and increase reliability. 

The SHELLCASE technology encapsulates an image sensor in a polymeric glass-silicon structure while the image sensor is still on the wafer.  This can be accomplished using established manufacturing technology.  The entire structure can then be singulated to provide an extremely thin complete camera module with an X/Y dimension identical to the original silicon chip.  It can then be stacked in a 3D structure with DSPs or memory chips as desired.

Semico Spin

The cost of digital camera modules has been reduced exponentially from something around $20 to well below $5.  Seemingly a limit had been reached.  The SHELLCASE MVP technology smashes that limit, providing a lower cost module with the added advantages of smaller size, increased reliability and improved manufacturability.  That’s a tremendous accomplishment.