Accelerated reliability testing of Cu-Al bimetallic contact by a micropattern corrosion testing platform for wire bond device application

Abstract

Accelerated reliability testing of integrated circuit (IC) packages, such as wire-bonded devices, is a useful tool for predicting the lifetime corrosion behavior of real-world devices. Standard tests, such as highly accelerated stress test, involves subjecting an encapsulated device to high levels of humidity and high temperature (commonly 85–121 ⁰C and 85–100% relative humidity). A major drawback of current reliability tests is that mechanistic information of what occurs between t = 0 and device failure is not captured. A novel method of in-situ investigation of the device corrosion process was developed to capture the real time mechanistic information not obtained in standard reliability testing [1] . The simple, yet effective methodology involves: Immersing a micropattern or device directly into contaminant-spiked aqueous solution, and observing its morphological changes under optical microscope paired with a camera. Short (2–48 h) time required for testing (compared to 24–300 h of standard tests). No need for humidity chambers.

Influence of HCl Concentration on Corrosion Behavior between Au or Cu Bonding Wires and the Bond Pad for Semiconductor Packaging

“…The encapsulation process mainly involves the use of epoxy molding compound (EMC). EMC is widely applied for semiconductor packaging due to its low cost and easy processability, but it inevitably contains halogen elements and ions such as sulfur [8,10,13,20,[24][25][26]. Due to the hydrophilic nature of EMC, it readily absorbs moisture from the air and promotes ion diffusion, creating a corrosive environment with electrolytes [6,20,27,28].…”