“Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will use its 8-inch processing, instead of 12-inch, to produce fingerprint sensors for Apple’s next-generation iPhone due to concerns about yield rates for 12-inch wafer-level packaging (WLP), according to industry sources,” Josephine Lien, Mavis Hong, and Jessie Shen report for DigiTimes.
“Apple previously decided to have TSMC produce fingerprint sensors for its next-generation iPhone at the foundry’s 12-inch facilities using a 65nm process, the sources noted,” Lien, Hong, and Shen report. “However, acknowledging risks associated with 12-inch WLP technologies, Apple has finally chosen TSMC’s 8-inch processing which enables mature yield rates for WLP to produce the fingerprint sensors, the sources said.”
“Yield rates for 8-inch WLP are able to exceed 95%, while those for 12-inch WLP at TSMC’s facilities at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) stay between 70% and 80%, the sources revealed,” Lien, Hong, and Shen report. “Fingerprint sensors for Apple’s iPhone 5s have been manufactured at TSMC’s 8-inch fabs.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]