Tape-automated bonding

Tape-automated bonding (TAB) is a process that places bare semiconductor chips (dies) like integrated circuits onto a flexible circuit board (FPC) by attaching them to fine conductors in a polyamide or polyimide (like trade names Kapton or UPILEX) film carrier.

Typically the FPC includes from one to three conductive layers and all inputs and outputs of the semiconductor die are connected simultaneously during the TAB bonding.

The TAB mounting is done such that the bonding sites of the die, usually in the form of bumps or balls made of gold, solder or anisotropic conductive material, are connected to fine conductors on the tape, which provide the means of connecting the die to the package or directly to external circuits.

[5] The film is moved to the target location, and the leads are cut and joining the chip takes place as necessary.

[11] Historically, TAB was created as an alternative to wire bonding and finds common use by electronics manufacturers.

Drawing of a tape-automated bonding carrier and definitions of various parts of the TAB assembly
A silicon IC as tape automated bonded (TAB) realization on the 35 mm wide tape. The upper picture shows the IC front side as glob topped (in the middle seen as a black object) and the lower picture shows the backside of the same assembly.
Example of a TAB tape after assembly. Chips can be located on other places than in the middle of the tape, in this case on the left hand side of the tape. Glob topped chips are visible as black, one missing and the rest without a glob top.