SEMICON Taiwan grand opening: Solomon showcases advanced wafer bowing, glass via inspection

The highly anticipated annual SEMICON Taiwan opened officially on September 2, attracting major global semiconductor equipment, materials, and technology manufacturers to gather at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. Driven by the continuous surge in demand for generative artificial intelligence and high-performance computing chips, advanced packaging technology has become the core focus of this year's exhibition. Solomon, a leading domestic provider of artificial intelligence 3D vision and robotics technologies, showcased its capabilities at the exhibition by publicly demonstrating high-end inspection solutions for wafer warpage and through-glass vias (TGV) for the first time. The initiative aims to help wafer foundries and advanced packaging facilities ensure operational security while improving production yields, injecting key technological momentum into Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain.

As the demands for computing power and integrated circuit density by artificial intelligence chips continue to rise, traditional 2D packaging is gradually facing physical limits, prompting the industry to accelerate its shift toward 3D stacking and advanced packaging technologies. During the advanced packaging manufacturing process, wafers are extremely prone to physical deformation—commonly known in the industry as wafer warpage—after undergoing multiple complex processes such as high temperatures, thinning, and chemical vapor deposition. If such microscopic warpage is not accurately detected and controlled during manufacturing, it can lead to subsequent photolithography alignment errors, chip delamination, or even the cracking and scrapping of entire wafers, exerting a huge impact on wafer foundries' operating costs and delivery schedules. The wafer warpage inspection solution launched by Solomon this time combines its deep 3D machine vision algorithms with high-precision optical sensing technology, enabling real-time, non-contact measurement of microscopic wafer deformation on the production line, intercepting potential defective products early, and significantly enhancing the process stability and operational security of wafer foundries.

In addition to wafer warpage inspection, another major highlight of Solomon's exhibition was its inspection solution developed for through-glass vias, which are attracting considerable attention in next-generation advanced packaging. As high-end packaging moves toward higher bandwidth and lower power consumption, the industry is actively seeking new materials to replace traditional silicon interposers. Among them, glass material is considered a key solution for realizing next-generation panel-level fan-out packaging and 3D integrated circuits due to its excellent electrical characteristics, flatness, and tunable coefficient of thermal expansion. However, inspecting tens of thousands of tiny through-glass vias densely packed on glass substrates only hundreds of microns thick—including evaluating via wall quality, verticality, cracks, and residual stress—presents extreme inspection difficulties, often exceeding the capabilities of traditional testing equipment. Through the integration of artificial intelligence vision technology and automated inspection systems, Solomon is able to conduct high-speed, high-precision 3D defect scanning of through-glass vias, ensuring the quality of high-density interconnections, which is directly tied to the ultimate yield of advanced packaging.

Driven by waste control and the pursuit of efficiency in smart manufacturing, semiconductor plants have reached an unprecedented level of reliance on automated equipment. Alongside Solomon's breakthroughs in optical inspection and visual recognition, Chun Fan Industrial, a domestic manufacturer specializing in pneumatic and hydraulic components, also made a simultaneous appearance at this year's international semiconductor exhibition, displaying key components and customized solutions tailored for semiconductor automation equipment. Semiconductor manufacturing environments impose extremely stringent requirements on cleanliness, corrosion resistance, high precision, and long-term operational stability. As hydraulic and pneumatic components serve as the core power sources for automated robotic arms, wafer handling robots, and valve controls, their quality directly affects the utilization rate of the entire production line. Leveraging its accumulated technical foundation in precision fluid power over the years, Chun Fan has penetrated the semiconductor automation supply chain to provide customized components meeting high standards, echoing the industry's strong demand for local supply chain resilience and smart manufacturing upgrades.

Looking broadly at the exhibits presented by local suppliers such as Solomon and Chun Fan Industrial at thisSEMICON Taiwan, it is evident that the advantages of Taiwan's semiconductor industry are no longer limited to foundry manufacturing and packaging-testing scale, but are progressively extending into upstream precision inspection, advanced packaging material applications, and the independent research and development of key automation components. Facing the challenges of global geopolitics and supply chain restructuring, Taiwanese manufacturers are leveraging forward-looking technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine vision to continuously consolidate their irreplaceable position in the international semiconductor ecosystem. From the meticulous quality control of wafer warpage to through-glass vias, and down to the stable drive of automation equipment, these technological innovations are not only sharp instruments for enterprises to develop market niches, but also crucial cornerstones ensuring Taiwan's leading position in the global semiconductor advanced process competition.