In recent years, "cross-border" has gradually become one of the hot words in the semiconductor industry. But when it comes to the best cross-border elder brother, we have to mention a packaging material supplier-Ajinomoto Group Co., Ltd. Can you imagine that a company that produces monosodium glutamate can hold the neck of the global semiconductor industry?
It may be hard to believe that Ajinomoto Group, which started with monosodium glutamate, has grown into a material supplier that cannot be ignored in the global semiconductor industry.
Ajinomoto is the ancestor of Japanese monosodium glutamate. In 1908, Dr. Kikumi Ikeda, the predecessor of the University of Tokyo, Imperial University in Tokyo, accidentally discovered another flavor source from kelp, sodium glutamate (MSG). He later named it "fresh flavor". The following year, monosodium glutamate was officially commercialized.
In the 1970s, Ajinomoto began to study the physical properties of some by-products produced in the preparation of sodium glutamate, and carried out basic research on amino acid derived epoxy resin and its composites. Until the 1980s, the patent of Ajinomoto began to appear in a number of resins used in the electronic industry. "PLENSET" is an one-component epoxy resin-based adhesive developed by Ajinomoto Company based on latent curing agent technology since 1988. It is widely used in precision electronic components (such as camera modules), semiconductor packaging and automotive electronics, uncoated paper, cosmetics and other fields. Other functional chemicals such as latent curing agents / curing accelerators, titanium-aluminum coupling agents, pigment dispersants, surface modified fillers, resin stabilizers and flame retardants are also widely used in electronics, automotive and other industries.
Neck-level status in the field of new materials.
Without this new material, you can't play PS5 or game consoles such as Xbox Series X.
Whether it is Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung or TSMC, or other mobile phone, computer or even car brands, will be deeply affected and trapped. No matter how good the chip is, it can't be encapsulated. This material is called Weizhi ABF film (Ajinomoto Build-up Film), also known as Ajinomoto stacking film, a kind of interlayer insulating material for semiconductor packaging.
Ajinomoto applied for a patent for ABF membrane, and its ABF is an indispensable material for the manufacture of high-end CPU and GPU. The most important thing is that there is no substitute.
Hidden under the lovely appearance, the leader of the semiconductor materials industry.
From almost giving up to becoming a leader in the chip industry.
As early as 1970, an employee named Guang er Takeuchi found that the by-products of monosodium glutamate could be made into resin synthetic materials with high insulation. Takeuchi transformed the by-products of monosodium glutamate into a thin film, which was different from the coating liquid. the film is heat-resistant and insulated, which can be accepted and appointed freely, so that the qualified rate of the product soars, and it is soon favored by chip manufacturers. In 1996, it was chosen by chip manufacturers. A CPU manufacturer contacted Ajinomoto about the use of amino acid technology to develop thin film insulators. Since ABF established the technology project in 1996, he has experienced many failures and finally completed the development of prototypes and samples in four months. However, the market was still unable to be found in 1998, during which the R & D team was disbanded. Finally, in 1999, ABF was finally adopted and promoted by a semiconductor leading enterprise, and became the standard of the whole semiconductor chip industry.
ABF has become an indispensable part of the semiconductor industry.
"ABF" is a kind of resin synthetic material with high insulation, which shines like a shining diamond on the top of a sand pile. Without the integration of "ABF" circuits, it will be extremely difficult to evolve into a CPU composed of nano-scale electronic circuits. These circuits must be connected to electronic equipment and millimeter electronic components in the system. This can be achieved by using a CPU "bed" made up of multiple layers of microcirculation, called a "stacked substrate", and ABF contributes to the formation of these micron circuits because its surface is susceptible to laser treatment and direct copper plating.
Nowadays, ABF is an important material of integrated circuits, which is used to guide electrons from nanoscale CPU terminals to millimeter terminals on printing substrates.
It has been widely used in all aspects of the semiconductor industry, and has become the core product of Ajinomoto Company. Ajinomoto has also expanded from a food company to a supplier of computer components. With the steady increase of ABF market share of Ajinomoto, ABF has become an indispensable part of the semiconductor industry. Ajinomoto has solved the difficult problem of chip manufacturing. Now the major chip manufacturing companies in the world are inseparable from ABF, which is also the reason why it can hold the neck of the global chip manufacturing industry.
ABF is of great significance to the chip manufacturing industry, not only improving the chip manufacturing process, but also saving cost resources. Also let the world chip industry have the capital to move forward, if it is not the flavor of the ABF, I am afraid the cost of chip manufacturing and production of a chip will rise greatly.
Ajinomoto's process of inventing ABF and introducing it to the market is only a drop in the ocean for countless technological innovators to develop new technologies, but it is very representative.
There are many small and medium-sized Japanese enterprises that are not well known in public perception and are not huge in scale, which hold the neck of the entire industrial chain in nuances that many ordinary people do not understand.
It is precisely because the in-depth R & D capability allows enterprises to generate more longitude, through technology-driven industrial upgrading, so that seemingly low-end products have the ability to enter the high-end market.
Post time: Mar-03-2023