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Moisture Content and Early Corrosion Detection of Cu Wire Bonding in a Semiconductor Package

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Abstract

The early corrosion detection of a semiconductor package is the desired goal for industrial semiconductor manufacturing owing to its capability to predict corrosion activity before the product leaves the assembly line. However, the standard procedure for early correction detection always faces great challenges and is yet to be available. Usually, the detected corrosion activities show some degree of failure. Leadframe discoloration provides insights into early corrosion detection in a semiconductor package. This study adopted an unbiased highly accelerated stress test (uHAST) to induce discoloration by promoting the suitable equilibrium moisture content (EMC). The wedge bond of Cu wire onto the Ag-plated Cu leadframe was used. To obtain the actual EMC, dew-point analysis was performed by dry- and wet-bulb data collection. The semiconductor package was subjected to several sets of uHAST condition comprising different combinations of temperature and relative humidity (RH) for 168 h. Mechanical decapsulation was used to expose the wedge bond of Cu wire onto the Ag-plated Cu leadframe followed by qualitative and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. We found that a higher percentage of EMC facilitated the discoloration of Cu-wedge bond. XPS analysis further confirmed that the discoloration was associated with early corrosion activities. Therefore, uHAST may be used as an early corrosion detection procedure by considering the combination effect of RH and temperature through EMC analysis.

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Acknowledgment

We express our deep appreciation to the Reliability Laboratory Team and Material Analysis Team of Nexperia Malaysia Sdn Bhd who have supported us in our analyses for this project. We also gratefully acknowledge the financial support and research facilities provided by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia, under Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/1/2020/TK0/UKM/01/3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia-Institute of Microengineering and Nanoelectronics (IMEN), 43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

    Saraswathy Supramaniam, Maria Abu Bakar, A. Atiqah, Azman Jalar & Mohd Zulhakimi Ab. Razak

  2. Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

    Azman Jalar

  3. Nexperia Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., 71450, Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

    Saraswathy Supramaniam

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  1. Saraswathy Supramaniam
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  2. Maria Abu Bakar
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  3. A. Atiqah
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  4. Azman Jalar
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  5. Mohd Zulhakimi Ab. Razak
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Correspondence to Azman Jalar.

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Supramaniam, S., Bakar, M.A., Atiqah, A. et al. Moisture Content and Early Corrosion Detection of Cu Wire Bonding in a Semiconductor Package. J Fail. Anal. and Preven. 23, 2362–2369 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-023-01751-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-023-01751-3

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