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September 2009 - September 2013
Publications
Publications (21)
Accurate root cause determination of integrated circuit devices necessitates the preservation of evidence during failure analysis. Identifying the cause of systemic defects requires capturing physical evidence provided by very few customer returns. Each piece of physical evidence is valuable due to the scarcity of returns in most cases less than 1...
Decapsulation of silver wire bonded packages with known techniques often results in damaged silver wires. The chemical properties of silver and silver compounds make silver bond wire inherently susceptible to etching damage by acid, conventional plasma, and oxygen-based Microwave Induced Plasma (MIP). In this paper we solve this problem by developi...
Advanced packages such as 2.5D will continue to grow in demand as performance increases are needed in various applications. Failure analysis must adapt to the changes in the interfaces, materials and structures being developed and now utilized. Traditional techniques and tools used for selectively removing materials to isolate and analyze defects n...
Heterogenous integration has led to the development of advanced semiconductor packages with better performance and smaller form factor. Such packages usually comprise of multiple dies and embedded components which are encapsulated with epoxy molding compounds (EMCs) to improve the reliability performance and to protect the die from external impact....
Decapsulation of packaged integrated circuits is routinely conducted in failure analysis and reliability tests. In this work, we report on decapsulation of a complex packaged semiconductor device with multi-tier palladium-coated copper bond wires. Decapsulation process by oxygen-only Microwave Induced Plasma (MIP) was optimized with the goal to avo...
When it comes to complex system-in-package (SiP) with a wide spectrum of materials and packaging structures integrated into a single module, decapsulation and the following failure analysis become extremely complex. Previous work published by the authors' group has demonstrated that a halogen-free microwave induced plasma (MIP) system has great adv...
Contamination and Electrical Overstress are typical failure modes that may appear in failed devices. However, the clean exposure and excellent preservation of such failure sites is often found challenging or even impossible due to the limitations of the decapsulation techniques and tools available. The accuracy of failure analysis can be jeopardize...
Failure analysis of automotive semiconductor devices requires highly reliable techniques to guaranty the success of artifact-free decapsulation with high repeatability and reproducibility. With the introduction of new qualification standards, new mold compounds, and new packaging structures, advanced decapsulation tools are needed to enable failure...
With the introduction of new packaging technologies and the great variety of semiconductor devices, new decapsulation tools are needed to improve failure analysis with a higher success rate, and to improve quality control with a higher confidence level. Conventional downstream microwave plasma etchers use CF 4 or other fluorine containing compounds...
Quality control and failure analysis of IC packages require physical access to the die during destructive analysis. Successful analysis depends on the critical preservation of the original state of the die, bond wire, bond pad, and original failure sites during the package decapping process. The currently used acid and conventional plasma decapping...
Thermally stressed high-density multi-tier copper wire bonded IC packages are the most challenging tasks in IC package decapsulation. For acid decapsulation, the hardening of epoxy in molding compound after stress tests requires much longer etching duration. As a result, copper bond wires suffer severe corrosion damage compared to un-stressed packa...
The applicability of Microwave Induced Plasma (MIP) afterglow etching in copper wire bonded IC package decapsulation is investigated. In-situ monitoring of the processing temperature during plasma etching is conducted with SOT23 components with diode devices inside as temperature sensor. Parameters that influence etching temperature and efficient M...
The applicability of microwave induced plasma based decapsulation technique to high pin count palladium coated copper wire bonded IC packages is studied. One of the major limiting factors that causes low molding compound etching rate by plasma is the SiO2 agglomerate formation during etching. A new process combining Ar/O2 plasma etching with ultras...
Decapsulation of a SOT23 semiconductor package with 23 um copper wire bonds is conducted with an especially designed microwave induced plasma system. It is found that a 30%-60% CF4 addition in the O-2/CF4 etchant gas results in high molding compound etching rate. Si3N4 overetching which is encountered in plasma decapsulation is solved by an improve...
Semiconductor packages with 23 um copper bond wires are decapsulated by an atmospheric pressure Microwave Induced Plasma (MIP). Potential damage to the copper bond wires due to fluorine or oxygen radicals in the plasma is investigated. Parameters like CF4 amount, input power level, and O2 addition that may influence the Si3N4 passivation etching ra...
Improvements of the Microwave Induced Plasma system especially designed for decapsulation of copper wire bonded integrated circuit (IC) packages are described. The system integrates a programmable XYZ-stage and a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera allowing computer controlled process and real-time imaging on the details of the IC package during pla...
Decapsulation of plastic integrated circuit (IC) packages with copper wire bonding is achieved by using an atmospheric pressure microwave induced plasma. A thermal model is built to estimate the bulk IC package temperature under different plasma etching conditions. Temperature measurements of the plasma effluent and IC package are made to validate...
Plastic integrated circuit packages with copper wire bonds are decapsulated by a Microwave Induced Plasma system. Improvements on microwave coupling of the system are achieved by frequency tuning and antenna modification. Plasmas with a mixture of O2 and CF4 showed a high etching rate around 2 mm3/min. The role of O2 and CF4 in etching molding comp...
Decapsulation of plastic Integrated Circuit (IC) packages is an important step in package level failure analysis. In this paper, optimization of a Microwave Induced Plasma (MIP) system for plastic IC package decapsulation is described. An improvement on the microwave coupling of the MIP system is achieved and microwave power reflection is reduced f...