Innovative metal thermo-compression wafer bonding for microelectronics and MEMS devices

With the continuously increasing level of integration for microelectronics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, such as gyroscopes, accelerometers and bolometers, metal wafer bonding becomes progressively more importance. In the present work common metal wafer bonding techniques were categorized, described and compared. While devices produced with metal thermo-compression wafer bonding ensure high bonding quality and a high degree of reliability, the required bonding temperatures are very often close to the maximum complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible process temperature (400-450°C). Based on a thermodynamic model of increasing the Gibbs free energy prior wafer bonding, in-situ ComBond(R) surface activation was applied to enable low-temperature Au-Au, Al-Al and Cu-Cu wafer bonding. Different aspects, such as bonding quality, dicing yield, bond strength, grain growth and elemental analysis across the initial bonding interface, were investigated. Based on these parameters successful wafer bonding was demonstrated at room temperature for Au-Au and Cu-Cu, and at 100°C for Al-Al wafer bonding.