Pre-Applied Underfill (PAUF) for Fine Pitch Flip Chip 3D Chip Stacking

Current demands of the industry on performance and cost has triggered the electronics industry to use high I/O counts semiconductor packages. Copper pillar technology has been widely adopted for introducing high I/O counts in Flip Chip and 3D Chip Stacking. With the introduction of flipchip technology new avenues have been generated involving 3D chip stacking to expand the need for high performance. With the increase in the demand for high density, copper pillar technology is being adopted in the industry to address the fine pitch requirements in addition to providing enhanced thermal and electrical performance. For this study, Copper pillars and SnAg were electrolytically deposited using Dow's electroplating chemistry on internally developed test structures. After plating, wafers were diced and bonded using thermocompression bonding techniques. Copper pillar technology has been enabled to pass reliability requirements by using Underfill materials during the bonding. Underfill materials assist in redistributing the stress generated during reliability such as thermal fatigue testing. Out of the several Underfill technologies available, we have focused on pre-applied or wafer level underfill materials with 60% silica filler for this study. In the pre-applied underfill process the underfill is applied prior to bonding by coating directly on the whole wafer. Pre-applied underfill reduces the underfill dispense process time by being present prior to bonding. In this study, we have demonstrated the application of wafer level underfill for fine pitch bonding of internally developed test vehicles with SnAg-capped copper pillars with 25 μm diameter and 50 μm bump pitch. This paper demonstrates bonding alignment for fine pitch assembly with wafer level underfill to achieve 100% good solder joins after bonding. Wafer level underfill has been demonstrated successfully to bond and pass JEDEC level 3 preconditioning and standard TCT, HTS and HAST reliability tests. This paper also discusses defect mechanisms which have been found to optimize the bonding process and reliability performance. Alan/Rey ok move from Flip Chip and Wafer Level Packaging 1-6-12.