阅读说明：本技术 在半导体衬底构件中实现的功率变换器 (Power converter implemented in semiconductor substrate member ) 是由 Y·A·A·努尔 H·勒谭 于 2019-02-11 设计创作，主要内容包括：一种在半导体衬底构件(101)上实现的功率变换器,诸如DC-DC变换器或功率放大器,该功率变换器包括：第一区域(102),该第一区域具有无源电气部件(104),该无源电气部件具有沉积在半导体衬底构件的相应侧(107、108)上的导电材料的第一导电层图案(105)和导电材料的第二导电层图案(106)；其中,在第一区域内的衬底中(通过蚀刻)形成沟槽(109)或通孔(110),并且其中,导电材料至少沉积在沟槽的底部上或通孔的侧壁上,并且电连接至第一导电层图案(105)和第二导电层图案(106)中的一个或两个；以及第二区域(103),该第二区域具有通过半导体制造工艺制造而与半导体衬底(101)集成的有源半导体部件(111)。还提供了一种嵌入半导体衬底构件的电源,诸如DC-DC变换器。(A power converter, such as a DC-DC converter or a power amplifier, implemented on a semiconductor substrate member (101), the power converter comprising: a first region (102) having a passive electrical component (104) having a first conductive layer pattern (105) of conductive material and a second conductive layer pattern (106) of conductive material deposited on respective sides (107, 108) of the semiconductor substrate member; wherein a trench (109) or a via (110) is formed (by etching) in the substrate within the first region, and wherein the conductive material is deposited at least on the bottom of the trench or on a sidewall of the via and is electrically connected to one or both of the first conductive layer pattern (105) and the second conductive layer pattern (106); and a second region (103) having an active semiconductor component (111) integrated with the semiconductor substrate (101) by being manufactured by a semiconductor manufacturing process. A power supply, such as a DC-DC converter, embedded in a semiconductor substrate member is also provided.)

1. A power converter comprising a semiconductor substrate member (101) comprising:

-a first region (102) having a passive electrical component (104) having a first conductive layer pattern (105) of conductive material and a second conductive layer pattern (106) of conductive material deposited on respective sides (107, 108) of the semiconductor substrate member; wherein a trench (109) or a via (110) is formed in the substrate within the first region, and wherein the conductive material is deposited at least on a bottom of the trench or on a sidewall of the via and is electrically connected to one or both of the first conductive layer pattern (105) and the second conductive layer pattern (106); and

-a second region (103) having an active semiconductor component (111) embedded in said semiconductor substrate member (101) by a semiconductor manufacturing process.

2. The power converter of claim 1, wherein one or both of the first and second conductive layer patterns (105, 106) extend across at least some of the second regions (103) to electrically connect the active semiconductor component (111) with the passive electrical component (104).

3. The power converter according to claim 1 or 2, wherein one or both of the first conductive layer pattern (105) and the second conductive layer pattern (106) comprises a pad portion (112) exposed for electrical connection by soldering, wire bonding or flip chip bonding.

4. A power converter according to any of the preceding claims, wherein one or both of the first and second conductive layer patterns (105, 106) comprise a portion extending from or to a pad portion (112), which portion is covered by an isolation layer (113).

5. The power converter of any of the preceding claims, comprising an inductor (124; 125) formed in the first region, an inductor winding of the inductor comprising:

-a first winding portion (114) formed in the first conductive layer pattern;

-a second winding portion (115) formed by a first through substrate via;

-a third winding portion (116) formed in the second conductive layer pattern; and

-a fourth winding portion (117) formed by a second through-substrate via;

wherein the first portion, the second portion, the third portion and the fourth portion are electrically connected by the deposited conductive material.

6. The power converter of claim 5, wherein the inductor is a solenoid inductor (124) or a toroidal inductor (125).

7. The power converter of claim 5 or 6, wherein the inductor winding is wound around an inductor core (118) comprising a material selected from the group of: air, silicon, magnetic materials, epoxy, or combinations thereof.

8. The power converter of any of claims 5-7, wherein the inductor winding is wound around an inductor core (118) comprising magnetic particles suspended in an epoxy resin.

9. The power converter according to any of claims 5-8, wherein the inductor winding is wound around an inductor core (118) having an array of deep trenches (119; 120; 121) filled or laminated with magnetic material or magnetic particles suspended in epoxy resin.

10. The power converter of any of claims 5 to 9, wherein the inductor winding is wound around an inductor core (118) having an array of deep trenches (121) stacked with a first layer of magnetic material (122) and a second layer of non-magnetic material (123).

11. The power converter of any of claims 5-10, wherein the inductor comprises a first coil (126) and a second coil (127) wound around a common inductor core, wherein the windings of the first coil and the second coil are formed by the first and second conductive layer patterns and a through-substrate via.

12. A power converter according to any preceding claim, comprising a capacitor (128) formed by:

-a first capacitor member (129) comprising a conductive material deposited in a first deep trench (131) extending from a first side of the semiconductor substrate; and

-a second capacitor member (130) comprising a conductive material deposited in a second deep trench (132) extending from a second side of the semiconductor substrate.

13. A power converter as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the power converter is implemented in a monolithic semiconductor substrate by a semiconductor manufacturing process.

14. A stack of components including one or more semiconductor substrate structures according to any of the preceding claims, wherein at least one semiconductor substrate structure comprises a pad portion (112) on a top side and a pad portion (112) on a bottom side.

15. A DC-DC converter according to any one of claims 1 to 13.

16. A power amplifier, such as an audio power amplifier, according to any one of claims 1 to 14.

Background

Semiconductor substrate components are widely used to tightly integrate several to millions of semiconductor components, such as transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and even inductors, to form much more complex circuits, like Central Processing Units (CPUs), microcontrollers, and a wide variety of other devices, like modems for wired or wireless communication.

However, it is often necessary to electrically connect external passive components such as inductors and capacitors to the semiconductor components. In connection therewith, it is observed that there is an unmet need for further tightly integrated circuits.

There is a particular area of technology for such unmet needs for compact integrated circuits, which is the area of power supply units, such as DC-DC converter units, which are typically based on switched mode power conversion.

In general, typical requirements for the power supply unit are: low cost, light weight, high reliability, efficient power conversion and small size. Further typical requirements are modularity and "ease of use".

For the earliest switch mode power converters, it was clear that higher switching frequencies allowed smaller inductors and capacitors. This in turn will result in a smaller, lighter and cheaper system. Smaller inductors and capacitors generally contribute to higher power densities. Power density may be defined as electrical power per volume unit, such as [ W/mm [ ]³]The electric power represents a rated electric power input to or output from the power converter divided by a cubic space of the power converter.

However, the use of high switching frequencies is not sufficient to achieve higher power densities. Also, since parasitic components play an increasingly important role as the switching frequency increases, high switching frequencies may come at the expense of reduced efficiency of the switching mode power converter. New devices need to be developed to achieve goals such as higher power density.

In general, it should be understood that a semiconductor substrate member is a piece of substrate into which one or more semiconductor components may be embedded by a semiconductor manufacturing process.

In contrast, the semiconductor substrate member may carry one or more components that are attached to the semiconductor substrate member, for example by soldering or wire bonding or another bonding technique. This is typically performed by (during) a mounting or montage method such as surface mount.

Also, it should be understood that the semiconductor substrate member may be attached to one or more other semiconductor substrate members, for example in a stack. Further, the semiconductor substrate member may be attached to a printed circuit board PCB; the PCB may have one or more metal layers supported by a layer of, for example, a glass fibre reinforced epoxy material.

In general, wire bond connections are known to introduce parasitic inductance and resistance and behave as antennas emitting electromagnetic radiation that is prone to cause problems with electromagnetic interference, EMI, especially at (high) switching frequencies.

In general, stray electromagnetic fields are known to cause problematic electromagnetic interference, EMI. In particular, switching circuits, such as switching power supplies like DC-DC converters and switching power amplifiers like class D power amplifiers, are prone to cause EMI problems.

In general, it is known that a technique for surface mounting a semiconductor substrate member to, for example, a printed circuit board (so-called flip-chip method) has its limitation in stacking components since only one side of the semiconductor substrate member for flip-chip is available for mounting.

Generally, in the field of power converter circuit architectures implemented fully or partially in a silicon substrate as small-sized modules, it is known that the term PSiP stands for "packaged power supply", and the term PwrSoC stands for "power supply on chip".

Related to the prior art

US8907447 discloses an inductor integrated in a semiconductor substrate for use in a DC-DC converter. Such inductors are sometimes referred to as power inductors in silicon. In an embodiment, an inductor has a magnetic core of magnetic material and a conductive winding embedded in a silicon substrate. The inductor is a spiral inductor or a toroidal inductor integrated in the substrate. A cover layer of magnetic material is disposed on at least one side of the silicon substrate to increase the inductance of the inductor. It is also described that the DC-DC converter comprises an integrated circuit mounted on top of the cover layer of the power inductor in silicon. However, despite having a small size, there is still a need for a more integration and efficiency improvement of such DC-DC converters. Furthermore, the processes used to fabricate the inductors are not compatible with semiconductor processes, which makes it more difficult to integrate active and other passive devices in the same substrate for tighter integration.

KR10-0438892 discloses a single chip module package produced by forming an integrated circuit and a thin film inductor in the same semiconductor substrate. A first well region and a second well region are formed in a semiconductor substrate. A first MOS (metal oxide semiconductor) transistor and a second MOS (metal oxide semiconductor) transistor are formed on the first well region and the second well region, respectively. A plurality of metal layer patterns are electrically connected between the first and second MOS transistors and the impurity region. A protective isolation layer is positioned over the resulting structure for separating the metal layer patterns. A lower core pattern is formed on a predetermined portion of the protective isolation layer. A first polyimide layer, a metal coil layer, a second polyimide layer, an upper core layer pattern, and a third polyimide layer are sequentially formed on the resultant structure.

Most of the prior art on integrated power supplies uses either inductors on silicon or inductors in silicon fabricated by 2D semiconductor fabrication techniques. 2D semiconductor manufacturing techniques are limited to planar inductor geometries such as circular spirals, rectangular spirals, and elongated spirals (so-called racetrack inductors) -all of which induce strong stray electromagnetic fields perpendicular to the plane of the inductor. This is a problem towards closer integration of components, since stray electromagnetic fields perpendicular to the plane of the inductor interfere with other components integrated near the inductor, such as active semiconductor devices, and thus electromagnetic interference (EMI) may become a problem.

Thus, there remains a need for a small-sized single chip module package that enables tight integration and reduces stray electromagnetic fields.

Disclosure of Invention

It is recognized that a fully functional power converter, such as a DC-DC converter, can be implemented on a single semiconductor substrate member less than one millimeter thick, including all required active and passive components. Provided is a method for producing:

a power converter implemented in a semiconductor substrate as follows. In some embodiments, the power converter is a DC-DC converter. In some embodiments, the power converter is a power amplifier, e.g., an audio power amplifier.

There is also provided a semiconductor substrate member including:

-a first region having a passive electrical component having a first conductive layer pattern of conductive material and a second conductive layer pattern of conductive material deposited on respective sides of a semiconductor substrate member; wherein a trench or via is formed in the substrate within the first region, and wherein the conductive material is deposited at least on a bottom of the trench or on a sidewall of the via and is electrically connected to one or both of the first and second conductive layer patterns; and

-a second region having active semiconductor components embedded in the semiconductor substrate member by the semiconductor manufacturing process.

Such semiconductor substrate members enable the manufacture of thin power supplies suitable for products requiring a very tight integration of their components, such as in mobile devices, e.g. smart phones, smart watches, etc. Generally, such products require a certain degree of electromagnetic compatibility EMC to ensure proper operation of the advanced circuits inside the product.

Such semiconductor substrate members enable better inductor topologies, such as toroidal inductors and solenoidal inductors, than spiral inductors. This may be due to the geometry that enables an improved quality factor (related to energy storage loss ratio) of the inductor.

Such a semiconductor substrate member can be made much smaller than the corresponding component on the printed circuit board and with smaller tolerances, which in turn reduces parasitic elements, thus enabling the use of higher switching frequencies in, for example, power supply modules such as DC-DC converters.

In particular, electromagnetic field radiation from the semiconductor substrate member can be reduced. The passive components have a 3D (three-dimensional) configuration that not only extends as an electrical path at the surface of the semiconductor substrate member in one or both of the horizontal top and bottom planes, but also has an electrical path through the semiconductor substrate member in the vertical direction. Thereby, a 3D (three-dimensional) configuration is formed. This enables the electromagnetic fields to be kept within the volume of the semiconductor substrate member to a greater extent than planar passive components, at least where they are strongest.

The active semiconductor components embedded in the semiconductor substrate member may be manufactured, for example, by silicon, gallium nitride or gallium arsenide semiconductor manufacturing processes. The semiconductor manufacturing process may be a conventional semiconductor manufacturing process in which a semiconductor wafer is used as a starting material for the manufacturing process. The process may include etching, depositing implants of so-called dopants (such as, for example, boron and phosphorous) to form active devices (such as transistors and diodes), and depositing one or more layers of metal to form interconnects between active components. The result of this process is a processed wafer with active components.

The processed wafer with active components is passivated by one or more protective layers to protect the active components from post-processing steps.

Post-processing steps are applied to form the passive components. Post processing steps may include etching to form trenches and vias, and deposition to apply one or more metal layers to form passive components. One or more metal layers are formed, for example, at the through-hole, for forming a through-substrate via (TSV), and/or at one or more trenches and/or between the passive component and one or more active components, for forming a conductive layer pattern, and/or at a pad for soldering or wire bonding, for attaching additional component members. One or more steps of post-processing are to establish electrical connections between passive components and active components by depositing a metal layer; this may include removing the protective layer, either completely or partially, to enable electrical connection to the active component. The result of the post-processing is a semiconductor substrate member. The semiconductor substrate member may implement a power supply, a power amplifier, or another integrated circuit including active and passive components.

After post-processing, the semiconductor substrate member is manufactured and may be subjected to assembly steps, for example for attachment to a so-called lead frame and/or PCB, and/or for attachment of component members, such as SMD components, to the lead frame and/or PCB by soldering. Also, the component members may be attached by wire bonding.

Fabrication of semiconductor substrate members having the structures as claimed and generally described herein may be performed with conventional semiconductor fabrication process methods and methods for fabricating hollow MEMS structures, for example as described in WO2017/108218-a1 assigned to the technical university of danish.

The thickness of the semiconductor substrate member may be, for example, approximately 280 μm, 350 μm, 500 μm, 1100 μm. The member may have a rectangular shape and be, for example, 6 x 9mm or larger or smaller. The member may also have another shape, such as a circle or an ellipse.

The first and second regions may abut each other, for example, at a lateral or longitudinal boundary across the semiconductor substrate member. The first region and the second region may not spatially overlap. The first and second regions may have any shape and may have shapes that are spatially complementary to each other.

The deposition includes one or more of electrodeposition, sputtering, evaporation, atomic layer deposition.

The semiconductor component may be according to Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The power supply may be implemented as a so-called interposer, which may be arranged between an application Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and an Integrated Circuit (IC). The interposer may create a conductive via or passage between the PCB and 1C.

Drawings

The following is described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

fig. 1 shows a perspective view of a semiconductor substrate member having a first region with passive electrical components and a second region with active semiconductor components integrated with the semiconductor substrate member;

FIG. 2 shows a perspective view of the semiconductor substrate member of FIG. 1 with additional component members mounted on one side of the semiconductor substrate member;

FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of a solenoid inductor embedded in a semiconductor substrate member;

FIG. 4 shows a perspective view of a winding of an inductor embedded in a semiconductor substrate member;

FIG. 5 shows a perspective view of a first coil and a second coil of an inductive transformer or coupled inductor having a coupled coil that may be embedded in a semiconductor substrate member;

FIG. 6 shows a perspective view of a toroidal inductor embedded in a semiconductor substrate member and having an inductor core with an array of deep trenches;

fig. 7 shows a cross-sectional view of an inductor core with an array of deep trenches;

fig. 8 shows a cross-sectional view of a trench of an inductor core filled with a magnetic material;

fig. 9 shows a cross-sectional view of a trench in an inductor core filled with a magnetic material or magnetic particles suspended in epoxy;

FIG. 10 shows a cross-sectional view of a trench in an inductor core, the trench being laminated with a first layer of magnetic material and a second layer of non-magnetic material;

FIG. 11 shows a perspective view of a capacitor embedded in a semiconductor substrate member and cross-sectional views A-A and B-B thereof;

FIG. 12 shows a cross-sectional view of another capacitor that may be embedded in a semiconductor substrate member; and

fig. 13 shows a cross-sectional view of yet another capacitor that may be embedded in a semiconductor substrate member.

Additional embodiments are described in the detailed description.

Also provided is a stack of components including one or more semiconductor substrate members as herein, wherein at least one semiconductor substrate member includes a pad portion on a top side and a pad portion on a bottom side.

The stack of components may include: a first semiconductor substrate member and a second semiconductor substrate member. The stack of components may additionally include one or more of the following: a PCB, one or more additional semiconductor substrate members, and one or more discrete components such as passive components and/or active components. The component may be a surface mount component. The components in the stack may be attached to each other at the pad portions by welding or gluing.

There is also provided a DC-DC converter comprising a semiconductor substrate as described herein.

The DC-DC converter may have a configuration selected from the group consisting of: buck converter, boost converter and flyback converter. The converter may be a boost or buck converter. The converter may be a resonant converter. The DC-DC converter may be configured for voltages up to 10 volts or more (e.g., 48 volts). The DC-DC converter may be configured to power levels of up to 20-30 watts or more.