Sam is correct about KLIC being cyclical stock but all high tech stocks are. I expect DELL to come down to earth in next twelve months like C-CUBE did in 1996.
As far as wirebonder being obsolete in 1998 or 1999 is completely false. It will be here in 2010 and beyond. People have been talking about death of PLCC by PQFP for ten years and they are still the most popular package.
IHMO, this is why flip chip issue is overblown.
Flip chip has been invented since 1970s(??) by IBM. Intel had the technology since 1986ish and I believe they actually made 80386 with flip chip in 1987. They had another package that incorporated 80387 in one package. Why did they not use them??? Because it was still too expensive to replace wirebond.
Why are they using them now? I believe that they have converted to flip chip to enhance the performance of the microprocessor.
On a standard package, the die is mounted on a ceramic surface with die surface facing up. The heat is removed from the circuitry(top of the die surface) through 14-18 mils silicon to ceramic to heat sink. This was no problem but now with the new processor, the power dissipation may be too high. Thus, IMHO, Intel have chosen to use Flip chip. In flip chip, the die surface is facing down to the ceramic substrates and the power from the die surface is removed directly to ceramic through C4 balls. There is some advantage of die size but I do not believe that was the factor that moved Intel into the new direction. But I do not believe Intel will adopt flipchip for their chip sets. It simply will be too expensive package. As I wrote before, flip chip will be used where it is necessity. IMHO, IBM used flipchip only on their microprocessors for their mainframe. Maybe, some ex-IBM lurkers will validate the statement.
As far as microBGA, it will be limited to Flash, DRAM, and etc to use in the mobile application initially. The wide use will not be there until the total cost(package cost + manufacturing cost) is par with current package cost(SOJs, TSOP, etc). But microBGA use a modified wirebonder and the customers will soon demand tighter bond pitch to be used for micron BGA.
I believe Anam of Korea packages approximately 6% of worldwide unit. I do not believe they have any flipchip assembly line yet. They are working with FCT to develop a line but they do not have them. Second largest subcon, ASE do not have a roadmap on flipchip BGA. Flip chip is a full of hot air. If two largest assembly subcons in the world do not have a capability, it will not be used widely for sometimes. The potential users with high I/O, such as LSI, VLSI, Altera, Xilinx do not have any assembly capability on their own and they rely heavily on these two vendors. I think only Intel and AMD will use flipchip PGA or BGA for large volume for next two years.
I hope this helps.
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