What happens next in permanent bonding market?

LYON, FRANCE: With the SOI business decreasing, the 3D TSV stack beginning, and the competitive environment changing with EV Group, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron and many new entrants, Yole Développement analyzes the permanent bonding market & technology trends and announced its new study: Permanent Wafer Bonding report.

Permanent bonding technology is a key process for a wide range of applications in the semiconductor industry such as MEMS, advanced packaging, LED devices, and SOI substrate applications:

"These have been the four main leading applications for permanent bonding for several years. Permanent bonding processes are increasingly more importance within the semiconductor industry," announces Amandine Pizzagalli, Technology and Market analyst, Advanced Packaging & Manufacturing, Yole Développement.

EV Group is still the market leader in permanent bonding technology with more than 70 percent of market share, but will be challenged by the merging of Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials, two of the largest semiconductor equipment suppliers in the world.

The entrance of aggressive new players is likely to challenge established players in the permanent bonding market:

* Some players have recently entered the market with low barriers of entry such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industry; mainly with customers involved in the R&D sector.

* Other big equipment suppliers have created a challenging environment and stimulate technology innovation for further improvements in the advanced packaging area.

* Tokyo Electron has gained more market share in 2013 from permanent bonding technologies - with significant market share achieved due to their deep involvement in 3D TSV stack bonding technology performed at room temperature.

The merger of Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials questions the involvement of permanent bonding equipment suppliers in future development.

In parallel, SUSS MicroTec, who provided automatic bonders for production for 10 years, stopped making them in 2013. This demonstrates that the permanent bonding market is very challenging.

This big change in the permanent bonding market environment will create a new battle in this field, which is going to be very interesting in the next five years.