Environmental Aging and Deadhesion of Polyimide Dielectric Films

One possible failure mechanism of products containing polyimide dielectric is deadhesion of polyimide from neighboring metallization. Deadhesion usually occurs due to the combined damage mechanisms of environmental aging and fatigue. In this paper, the rate of aging of Kapton-E polyimide is quantified as a function of temperature and humidity exposure using peel and tensile tests. An accelerated test methodology that accounts for both aging and fatigue and that can be used to evaluate the resistance of electronic products to polyimide deadhesion is then proposed.