EMI Shield Sputter Systems & Materials

EMI Shield Sputter

Shielding used to be done at board level, with a stamped metal can over a group of parts. That stops working once the board has to get thinner and lighter. Shielding at the package level instead — a conformal film sputtered onto each package — takes the can off the board, frees up board area, and lets a shielded part sit anywhere on the system board.

Sputtering deposits that film in vacuum from a target, so it goes on thinner and denser than plating or painting, and the thickness is easier to hold.

ShieldRus-1200 / 1200s / 300H

A cubicle in-line system built for volume. The three models share the process and differ in throughput — 1200 for mass production, 300H for smaller runs and qualification.

	ShieldRus-1200	ShieldRus-1200s	ShieldRus-300H
Tact time	6 min (3.5 μm at top)	6 min (3.5 μm at top)	30 min (3.5 μm at top)
UPH	Ø300 ring frame, 40 ea	10 ea	2 ea
Cooling	Active	Active	Active
Temperature	< 120 ℃	< 120 ℃	< 120 ℃
Package handling	PI tape and MF-Seal	PI tape and MF-Seal	PI tape and MF-Seal

Sputtering runs cold — under 120 ℃ with MF-Seal and PI tape — with active cooling, so the package is not put through a thermal excursion for the sake of the shield. Substrates covered are package, glass and wafer; applications run from package EMI to solar and display.

Masking and Dispensing

The two machines that sit either side of the sputter step.

VS-300 masks the bottom of a BGA package before sputtering, using vacuum and a special masking tape. It is the low-cost route to keeping the film off the ball side.

CURUS-C200™ is a self-standing cluster dispenser for H-VAMs™, the adhesive that holds packages during sputtering. It runs the whole sequence in one tool — apply, planarize, heat, cure, cool — with each unit process operating independently, and holds H-VAMs thickness to within ± 5 %. Dispenser count can be changed to match the tact time required.

Industrial Sputter

SIGMA 1000 is an in-line sputtering system for coating outside semiconductor packaging — glass, film and plastic, in various sizes and shapes.

Cathodes are cylindrical or rectangular. Targets cover ordinary metals such as Ti, Cu, SUS, Ag and Au, and ferromagnetic and oxide materials including Si, Ni, NiFe, ITO and ZnO. Typical work is functional and optical coating for glass, electronic parts, home appliances and automotive parts.

Materials

The consumables the shielding process runs on. CNI makes these itself, which is why the equipment and the material are specified together.

• MF Seal Tape — metal foil tape for masking the underside of a package before the shield is coated. Conductive and ESD-free, low outgassing, and holds vacuum quality. Covers LGA, BGA and strip formats.
• H-VAMs™ — high-viscosity adhesive for handling packages inside the sputtering system, co-developed with Shin-Etsu. Attaches and releases cleanly, resists peeling and outgassing, and is made to order for viscosity, thickness and shape.
• Sputtering targets — high-purity, made in-house.