Leading Indicators for Prognostication of Impending Failures on Cu-Al Interconnects

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradeep Lall ◽  
Shantanu Deshpande
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Aging ◽  
High Strength ◽  
Gold Wire ◽  
Wire Bonding ◽  
Remaining Useful Life ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Wire Bonds ◽  
Marquardt Algorithm ◽  
Useful Life ◽  
Copper Aluminum

Wire bonding is predominant mode of interconnect in electronics packaging. Traditionally material used for wire bonding is gold. But industry is slowly replacing gold wire bond by copper-aluminum wire bond because of the lower cost and better mechanical properties than gold, such as high strength, high thermal conductivity etc. Numerous studies have been done to analyze failure mechanism of Cu-Al wire bonds. Cu-Al interface is a predominant location for failure of the wirebond interconnects. In this paper, the use of intermetallic thickness as leading indicator-of-failure for prognostication of remaining useful life for Cu-Al wire bond interconnects has been studied. For analysis, 32 pin chip scale packages were used. Packages were aged isothermally at 200°C and 250°C for 10 days. Packages were withdrawn periodically after 24 hours and its IMC thickness was measured using SEM. The parts have been prognosticated for accrued damage and remaining useful life in current or anticipated future deployment environment. The presented methodology uses evolution of the IMC thickness in conjunction with the Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm to identify accrued damage in wire bond subjected to thermal aging. The proposed method can be used for equivalency of damage accrued in Cu-Al parts subjected to multiple thermal aging environments.

High Temperature Storage and HAST Reliability of Copper-Aluminum Wirebond Interconnects

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradeep Lall ◽  
Shantanu Deshpande ◽  
Luu Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
Copper Wire ◽  
Gold Wire ◽  
Wire Bonding ◽  
Remaining Useful Life ◽  
Thermal Resistivity ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Marquardt Algorithm ◽  
Temperature And Humidity

Gold wire bonding has been widely used as first-level interconnect in semiconductor packaging. The increase in the gold price has motivated the industry search for alternative to the gold wire used in wire bonding and the transition to copper wire bonding technology. Potential advantages of transition to Cu-Al wire bond system includes low cost of copper wire, lower thermal resistivity, lower electrical resistivity, higher deformation strength, damage during ultrasonic squeeze, and stability compared to gold wire. However, the transition to the copper wire brings along some trade-offs including poor corrosion resistance, narrow process window, higher hardness, and potential for cratering. Formation of excessive Cu-Al intermetallics may increase electrical resistance and reduce the mechanical bonding strength. Current state-of-art for studying the Cu-Al system focuses on accumulation of statistically significant number of failures under accelerated testing. In this paper, a new approach has been developed to identify the occurrence of impending apparently-random defect fall-outs and pre-mature failures observed in the Cu-Al wirebond system. The use of intermetallic thickness, composition and corrosion as a leading indicator of failure for assessment of remaining useful life for Cu-al wirebond interconnects has been studied under exposure to high temperature and temperature-humidity. Damage in wire bonds has been studied using x-ray Micro-CT. Microstructure evolution was studied under isothermal aging conditions of 150°C, 175°C, and 200°C till failure. Activation energy was calculated using growth rate of intermetallic at different temperatures. Effect of temperature and humidity on Cu-Al wirebond system was studied using Parr Bomb technique at different elevated temperature and humidity conditions (110°C/ 100%RH, 120°C/ 100%RH, 130°C/ 100%RH) and failure mechanism was developed. The present methodology uses evolution of the IMC thickness, composition in conjunction with the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm to identify accrued damage in wire bond subjected to thermal aging. The proposed method can be used for quick assessment of Cu-Al parts to ensure manufactured part consistency through sampling.

Resistance Spectroscopy Based Assessment of Degradation in Cu-Al Wire Bond Interconnects

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradeep Lall ◽  
Yihua Luo
Keyword(s):  
Health Management ◽  
Copper Wire ◽  
Wheatstone Bridge ◽  
Gold Wire ◽  
Remaining Useful Life ◽  
Thermal Cycles ◽  
Leading Indicator ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Useful Life ◽  
The Wire

Escalation of the expense of gold has resulted in industry interest in use of copper as alternative wire bonds interconnect material. Copper wire has the advantage of lower price and comparable electrical resistance to gold wire. In this paper, 32-pin copper-aluminum wire bond chip scale packages are aged at three types of environment conditions separately. Environmental conditions included: 200°C for 10 days, 85°C and 85% RH for 8 weeks and −40°C to 125°C for 500 thermal cycles. The resistances of the wire bond are obtained every 24 hours for 200°C environment, every 7 days for 85C/85RH environment and every 5 days (50 thermal cycles) for the thermal cycling environment. A leading indicator has been developed in order to monitor the progression effect of the different thermal aging condition on the package and prognosticate remaining useful life based on the resistance spectroscopy. The Cu-Al wire bond resistance has been measured using a modified Wheatstone bridge. It has been shown previously that precise resistance spectroscopy is able to offer the failure of a leading indicator prior to the traditional definition of failure. The prognostic health management is qualified to be an efficient and accuracy tool for assessment of the remaining life of the wire bond. The ability to predict the remaining useful life of Cu-Al wire bond provides several advantages, including increasing safety by providing warning ahead of time before the failure.

Reliability Assessment of Cu-Al WB Under High Temperature and High Voltage Bias Application

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradeep Lall ◽  
Sungmo Jung
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
High Voltage ◽  
Galvanic Corrosion ◽  
Copper Wire ◽  
Ionic Transport ◽  
Gold Wire ◽  
Process Window ◽  
Voltage Bias ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Wire Bonds

Abstract Electronics in automotive underhood environments may be subjected to high temperature in the range of 125–200°C. Transition to electric vehicles has resulted in need for electronics capable of operation under high voltage bias. Automotive electronics has simultaneously transitioned to copper wire-bond from gold wire-bond for first-level interconnections. Copper has a smaller process window and a higher propensity for corrosion in comparison with gold wire bonds. There is scarce information on the reliability of copper wire bonds in presence of high voltage bias under operation at high temperature. In this paper, a multiphysics model for micro galvanic corrosion in the presence of chlorine is introduced. The diffusion cell is used to measure the diffusivity of chlorine in different pH values and different temperatures. Diffusivity measurements are incorporated into the 3D ionic transport model to study the effect of different environmental factors on the transport rate of chlorine. The tafel parameters for copper, aluminum and intermetallics have been extracted through measurements of the polarization curves. The multiple physics of ionic transport in presence of concentration gradient, potential gradient is coupled with the galvanic corrosion.

To Study the High Temperature Effects on Ball Bonds Using Low K Material in Wire Bond Devices

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Kudtarkar ◽  
R. Murcko ◽  
K. Srihari ◽  
S. Saiyed
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
Mechanical Stability ◽  
Semiconductor Industry ◽  
Gold Wire ◽  
Wire Bonding ◽  
Mechanical Stresses ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Ball Bonds ◽  
Bond Pads ◽  
Low K

Wire bonding is widely used as one of the main interconnect alternatives. This technique applies significant mechanical stresses on the bond pads along with heat and ultrasonic energy to form a bond. An interconnection of copper plus low k material has been a focus of the semiconductor industry with the goal of reducing interconnection delays. The material is below the wire bond pads and complicates the mechanical stability of the device during wire bonding. The low k materials that are suggested are very sensitive to these mechanical stresses. This generates a significant reliability concern for the underlying metal structures. In addition, the integrity of the bond formed may be negatively impacted from a reliability perspective because of the softer material properties of the dielectric. This research explores the ball bond integrity for die with SiO2 and low k dielectric underlying material respectively, using 0.8 mil thick (20 microns) gold wire. Accelerated tests, such as high temperature storage at 150°C and 175°C, were conducted to assess the reliability of these bonds. The results of this investigation reveal that the ball bond’s strength degrades after high temperature tests due to the occurrence of Kirkendall voids between the gold wire and the aluminum bond pad. The degradation recorded was more severe for regular die than its low k counterpart.

The Microelectronic Wire Bond: Past, Present, and Future

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 (1) ◽  
pp. 000462-000469
Author(s):  
Harry K. Charles
Keyword(s):  
Copper Wire ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Bond Formation ◽  
Wire Bonding ◽  
Testing Methods ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Fine Pitch ◽  
Wire Bonds ◽  
Ball Bonding

Since its very inception, the microelectronic wire bond has been the dominate form of first-level interconnection (chip to package or substrate). Wire bonds account for over 80% of first-level chip interconnections made by the microelectronic industry each year. Wire bonding is reliable, flexible, and low cost when compared to other forms of first-level interconnections. In this article a brief discussion of wire bonding is presented along with bond formation fundamentals. Aspects of wire bond reliability will be explored in conjunction with methods of wire bond testing. Particular attention is given to fine pitch bonding, bonding to stacked die, higher frequency bonding, ball bonding with copper wire, and advanced bond testing methods.

Accrued Damage and Remaining Life in Field Extracted Assemblies Under Sequential Thermo-Mechanical Loads

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradeep Lall ◽  
Mahendra Harsha ◽  
Jeff Suhling ◽  
Kai Goebel ◽  
Jim Jones
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Aging ◽  
Residual Life ◽  
Remaining Useful Life ◽  
Relative Accuracy ◽  
Percentage Error ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Sample Standard Deviation ◽  
Damage Initiation ◽  
Useful Life ◽  
Insight Into

Field deployed electronics may accrue damage due to environmental exposure and usage after finite period of service but may not often have any macro-indicators of failure such as cracks or delamination. A method to interrogate the damage state of field deployed electronics in the pre-failure space may allow insight into the damage initiation, progression, and remaining useful life of the deployed system. Aging has been previously shown to effect the reliability and constitutive behavior of second-level leadfree interconnects. Prognostication of accrued damage and assessment of residual life can provide valuable insight into impending failure. In this paper, field deployed parts have been extracted and prognosticated for accrued damage and remaining useful life in an anticipated future deployment environment. A subset of the field deployed parts have been tested to failure in the anticipated field deployed environment to validate the assessment of remaining useful life. In addition, some parts have been subjected to additional know thermo-mechanical stresses and the incremental damage accrued validated with respect to the amount of additional damage imposed on the assemblies. The presented methodology uses leading indicators of failure based on micro-structural evolution of damage to identify accrued damage in electronic systems subjected to sequential stresses of thermal aging and thermal cycling. Damage equivalency methodologies have been developed to map damage accrued in thermal aging to the reduction in thermo-mechanical cyclic life based on damage proxies. The expected error with interrogation of system state and assessment of residual life has been quantified. Prognostic metrics including α-λ metric, sample standard deviation, mean square error, mean absolute percentage error, average bias, relative accuracy, and cumulative relative accuracy have been used to compare the performance of the damage proxies.

Measurement of Ion-Mobility in Copper-Aluminum Wirebond Electronics Under Operation at High Voltage and High Temperature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradeep Lall ◽  
Yihua Luo ◽  
Shantanu Deshpande ◽  
Luu Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
High Voltage ◽  
Copper Wire ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Ionic Mobility ◽  
Gold Wire ◽  
Voltage Bias ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Mobility Of Ions ◽  
Copper Aluminum

Transition of ground vehicles to HEV and FEV has necessitated the operation of electronics in automotive underhood at high voltage bias and high temperature for extended period-of-time. Examples include gate drivers and IGBT modules. A typical automotive benchmark is operation for 10 years and 100,000 miles. Simultaneously, the first-level interconnects are migrating to use copper-wire interconnects in place of the previously used gold wire. Copper wire has higher propensity for corrosion and a narrower process-bonding window in comparison with gold wire based systems. Exposure to high temperature, humidity and bias influences the mobility of ions in the EMC and thus the contaminant transport to the WB interfaces. Measurements of diffusion behavior of EMCs at high temperature and high voltage bias are not available for readily being used in models. Prior studies have focused on biased humidity tests on wire bonds with the amplitude of the bias being limited up to 3.5Volts. In this paper, a PWM-controlled-gate drive-based test setup is established to study the effect of high voltage (up to 20Volts) on Cu-Al wire bond interconnects. A migration-diffusion cell experiment is designed to quantify the effect of voltage bias on transport of chlorine in EMCs. Diffusion coefficient and ionic mobility of chlorine at different temperatures are obtained. Resistance spectroscopy measurements show the progression of corrosion induced by voltage bias. A corrosion simulation is used to quantify the effect of voltage bias on corrosion rate of Cu-Al wire bond.

Advancements in Silver Wire Bonding

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subramani Manoharan ◽  
Chandradip Patel ◽  
Patrick McCluskey
Keyword(s):  
Failure Modes ◽  
Copper Wire ◽  
Gold Wire ◽  
Good Alternative ◽  
Wire Bonding ◽  
Silver Wire ◽  
Process Window ◽  
Fine Pitch ◽  
Wire Bonds ◽  
Copper Wire Bonding

Silver is a leading competitor to gold and copper in fine pitch wire bonding used in the interconnection of microelectronic devices. Primary material for wire bonding has been gold, which gave way to copper in order for original equipment manufacturers to realize cost benefits. However, copper wire bonding has exhibited several reliability issues, especially in industrial and high temperature applications. Corrosion is the major problem, which was mitigated by coating the wire with palladium, which increased overall cost of production. Other concerns include harder free air ball (FAB) leading to under pad metallization cracking, smaller process window, excessive aluminum splash especially in fine pitch bonding, and lower throughput and yield arising from the hardness and stiffness of copper. Due to the above concerns, automotive, military and aerospace industries are still reluctant to fully adopt copper wire bonding. Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are also not manufactured with copper wires due to its low reflectance. Some of these industries are still using gold wire bonds in most of their packages, but are continually looking for an alternative. Silver wire bonds have good electrical and thermal conductivity, are less prone to corrosion than copper, have low melting points and comparable hardness to gold. Also, cost of silver has been shown to be similar to that of palladium coated copper wire, hence making it a good alternative. Silver wire bonding, a relatively new area of research, has attracted a lot of research focused on wire dopant material, bonding process, quality and reliability. This paper is aimed to serve as a comprehensive review of research done in this area, by summarizing the literature on silver wire bonding, establishing benefits and drawbacks over other wire bond materials and indicating reliability concerns along with failure modes and mechanisms.

Ageing characteristics of Cu Wire Bonds on Palladium Surface Finishes

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 (1) ◽  
pp. 000566-000570
Author(s):  
Mustafa Oezkoek ◽  
Horst Clauberg ◽  
Hugh Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Surface Finish ◽  
Thermal Aging ◽  
Copper Wire ◽  
Pure Copper ◽  
Wire Bonding ◽  
Throughput Optimization ◽  
Wire Bond ◽  
Surface Finishes ◽  
Copper Wire Bonding ◽  
Pure Cu

During the past two years, fine pitch copper wire bonding has finally entered high volume production. It is estimated that nearly 15% of all wire bonders used in production are now equipped for copper wire bonding. Most of these are used exclusively for copper wire bonding. In terms of pitch, copper wire is only barely lagging behind the most advanced gold applications. The most commonly used copper wire is 20um in diameter and 18um copper wire is already being used in mass production. Evaluations with even finer wire are underway. Although some technical challenges remain, many years of research have now resolved most of the problems associated with copper wire bonding and attention is beginning to shift from merely ensuring reliable manufacturing processes to optimizing processes for efficiency and throughput. The most advanced wire bonders now have pre-configured processes specifically designed for copper. In addition to throughput optimization, further cost reductions are being sought. Among these is the desire to eliminate the high-cost gold not just from the wire, but also from the substrate. On the substrate side the electronics packaging industry still works with electrolytic nickel / electrolytic (soft) gold (Ni/Au) for copper wire bond applications. This surface finish works with copper wire bonding but includes some disadvantages, such as:- Thick expensive Au layers of 0.1 to 0.4μm- Electrically connected pads (bussing for the plating) which requires added space on the substrate.- Pd-coated copper wire often delivers better results on gold covered finishes, but is two to three times more expensive as pure copper wire Furthermore electrolytic Ni/Au was not chosen for Cu wire bonding as a result of in-depth investigations for the most effective surface finish. The selection was made because it was the surface finish with the highest distribution in the market for wire bond packages. This paper is offering the results of a two company joint work regarding alternative copper wire bondable surface finishes. The result of the project is separated in 2 papers/publications. The first publication [1] presents the investigations with Cu wire bond pull forces and process windows of 23 different surface finish variations. The main aim was to identify alternative surface finishes for copper wire bonding. Within this study the surface finishes ENEP (Electroless Nickel/Electroless Palladium) and “Direct Electroless pure Pd on copper” (pure EP finish) was identified as copper wire bondable finishes with the pure Cu wire. The second part of the evaluation summarizes an in-depth study of copper wire bonding tests after thermal aging with ENEP and the pure EP surface finish using the pure copper wire. The results of this investigation does include results with pull forces after thermal aging and an IMC Investigation with FIB Pictures of the copper wire/surface finish connection in order to evaluate the reliability of such an interconnection.

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