Electronic Polymers

US demand to grow 13.3% annually through 2008

Demand for electronic polymer products is forecast to expand 13.3 percent per year to $4.5 billion in 2008. Production of these products will require 510 million pounds of resin valued at $2.2 billion. Growth will be driven by a strong recovery in the semiconductor industry and a shift to new technologies that are more intensive users of polymers.

For example, direct chip attachment is intensifying the need for new materials such as underfills and conductive adhesives. This encourages close collaboration between chipmakers and backend (packaging) operations and favors firms with US operations. These trends in back-end technologies, and the general shift toward higher cost specialty resins, will result in electronic polymer products outpacing gains in electronic component shipments through 2008.

Area array, chip scale packages to spur gains

For electronic polymers used in fundamental applications such as printed circuit board laminates and semiconductor packaging, the primary competitive focus will be the continuing replacement of wire bonded packages by flip chip and other types of area array and chipscale packaging in many applications. Standard wire bonded packages will still predominate, but the move to area array packaging will cause significant shifts in material requirements as formerly niche materials become major segments of the industry.

For instance, chip underfills, used in flip chip assemblies, see annual growth of nearly 30 percent per year through 2008. Conductive adhesives will also see strong gains as these materials replace lead solders due to environmental factors and the use of less expensive compounds in molded interconnect devices. Conversely, epoxy molding compounds and die attach adhesives, both used traditional wire bonded packaging, will post slower gains.

Low-k, liquid crystal, polysulfone polymers among best prospects

A few segments of the electronic polymer products market are expected to experience particularly good growth. For example, annual gains for low-k dielectric polymers are projected to reach $285 million in 2008 from less than $10 million in 2003. Polymers with a low dielectric constant, such as Dow Chemical�fs SILK and Rohm and Haas�f ZIRKON materials, are challenging traditional silicon dioxide (SiO2) in crucial ILD (interlayer dielectric) applications in semiconductor fabrication. The primary competition for low-k polymers, which are applied via a spin-on process, is from CVD (chemical vapor deposition) processes utilizing carbondoped SiO2. The outcome of this competition is likely to be a combination of spin-on polymers and CVD-applied materials. Compounds made of high temperature thermoplastics such as liquid crystal polymer and polyethersulfone used in molded interconnect devices are another area of strong growth.

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