WORKING AROUND THE FLUORINE FACTOR IN WIRE BOND: RELIABILITY Jeanne Pavio, Robert Jung, Craig Doering, Randal Roebuck and Hario Franzone Texas Instruments Dallas, Texas ABSTRACT; Fivorine contamination on integrated cireuit chips has remained a critical _problen for wire bond reliability, aggravated by the change from wet chemical etch on the part of the chip manufacturers. Yet, we have found that the phenomenon can be the result of different conpounds with failure mechanisns that vary with the particular fluorine contaminant. that happens to be present as well as the quantity of that contaminant. Our study analyzes aluninun fluoride anc fluorocarbon polymer contaminatfon and their associated failure modes on various hybrid products. It examines wire bond processing which, in some eases, can overcone certain levels of contanination to produce strong wire bonds with good reliability. INTRODUCTION TESTING AND RESULTS OF WYBRIO A In the midst of a successful history of wire We becane alerted to the wirebond problem when bonding reliability on several different hybrids, approxinately thirty percent of electrical test we first experienced wirebond problens as an failures could be attributed to resistive or Jsolated instance on one particular hybrid. open wirebonds. Although compression and shepe These problens were not evident at the assenbly of the bonds were normal, sectioned bonds operation, and the wirebond schedule was in use exhibited extrenely limited intermetal lic fora for various prograns being manufactured in the ation (See Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). The failures seme agsenbly area, vere attributed to contamination of the bond pad area. Initial failures surfaced as wires on nybrids Imeciately an ine _ Hately an in-process non-destructive bond vvich becane resistive during environmental derictestieae uactrtured te elartvieroceay testing. Failure analysis of these units did Shecrepanctes dariay the! manufacturtnarcyede not reveal gross intermetallic formation but {teelf ona dally besiss In additions Auger did "reveal balls, isleh IS esses) analysis was completed to determine the nature aluminum pad of the integrated circuit. Although aiegien radspal there was ball bonding in other areas of the dictent of: the’ costal as Efen ubtie tony Ps circuit, these balls were not resistive end not a iveipulticeestian at ie ifte,” Further teeing of sanpe units with fovestad eataetrpnie fatTure of rencon bal destructive bond pulls indicated that. random, catastrophic failures (below 2.0 grams) of ini- erst Rrtr les ere, the oven Liceysrege pul) strengths were in the 6 - 9 gram range, Failures Ga gis sees io on pres ateata cae = prenironse te Sta far Sri teres scat dlantese rorareyretiee eo C/OMnvUpenenimbiicrin otter arettiet the with average reported pulls in the 6.0 to 9.0 the bonds. Failure mode for the majority of the fram ranges fahet Cae ene BAT eiag fron the oslo pod A test cycle of microsectioning, SEM analysis, tee ne ESCA, and Auger was mobilized with. two major jer formed on unprocesse: goalé:' to define the problen {tself, fsolating Eee ese iade tee tie, save weter site and Tes use, any once defined) to ettingt to ne control sempie, a totally effferent 1ec. on elresvent He wstfoe surfering in ret febi ity wihieh no failures had been experienced, Levels, Gr in eireutt performance. of onygen and carbon were. comparable on the both tte, The only other contaminant, present. was enc fivarine on the die used to manufecture hybrid A related problems on other hybrid-circuits with Our control sample registered no fluorine and our varfous levels of contaminant present. Our test sample had a fluorine level at approximately stucy examines attempts to achieve. good bonding Gs 'eh by Atonfe vetaht, Although the fluorine in spite of the contaminant, utilizing an array a 2 wes present on the aluminum pads, none was re- af thermocompression end thérmosonte bond Hartad on the reneriagttons Eventually, we began to experience fluorine The next approach was to perform an ESCA analysis Through SEM photographs, microsections, bond to determine exactly what specific type of con pulls and bond shears, we were able to target pound was involved In the contaminant, to attenpt levels at which bonds were’ both strong (6.0 - ‘tp renove it, and to begin another lot of fabri- 9.0 grams) and rel fable cation of ICs. 428Binding energy was reported to be that of 3 Hlosropoiyecr, “in sdettion to the lvortdey the ELEh detected oxides nttride and’ carbon tn the fore of 2 hytrocason, sain sah dh InGefar FYuar ine. val, attempt fuloydth 2 ater ea ececamsucces- ean, operafien. ana anceiugen Splasea etch hugir analysis; taker after ‘each ‘ghdan-dperation d{d-not show. any reductianin,,. Hgneversaiv"ar from fabrication. Fluorine levels at 3,0 - 4.0% Atmoic weight on the AT pads. ‘Auger analysis recorded The next step was to achieve good bonding fn spite of this contamination level. Since successful bonding is a tine/temperature Phenomenon, it can be seen that an increase in ‘the dwell tine should achieve a positive effect in bonding strength given maintenance of the same temperature and pressure. However, no change in internetalic formation was noted until we increased bond dwell time to 4 seconds per bond, which was not feasible for the production volumes and delivery schedule. At the time, ‘our bonding profile.was strictly thermocon- Pression with 2 240°C stage temperature, 300°C capiliary and 55 grams of force using 1.0 mil gold wire. Testing was performed using a manual thermosonic bonder which was found to be unsuccessful. All bonds exhibited limi ted ‘intermetallic formation upon microsectionings _and within the test sample, approximately 72. ‘of the bonds failed destructive pull testing (5 grams) at the ball/pad interface, The final step was to develop a. thermocon- pression bonding test mtrix. See Table 1, Destructive bong pulls were completed initially and after 2 300°C bake of four hours with 450 bonds pulled at each schedule. Results are tabulated in Table II. for all schedules the greatest faflure mechanism ¥G0:- 80x bonds) initiatly was wire breakage. Hifter’the bake operation, Tifted ball. bonds ‘ecane the dominant faflure node in al] but “Schedule D. Although lifted bond faflures sficreased in (D) after baking, 55% of the bonds Still failed due to wire breakage. Examining 2 bond lifts, we see that schedule D provided the ‘best performance in ball adhesion, Bes {iticrosections showed that only with schedule D Werachteved good intenetallic formation across oe of the bond consistently. itew schedule was inplenented along with sale non-destructive pull testing during the fenbly. operation, sanple destryctive pull. = Hing after 3 hoir bake at 400C, and Auger Balysis of each new siice lot of integrated 429 circuits. Although the bond pads registered 2 fluorine ‘contamination level at 3.0 - 4.0% atomic weight, with the new bonding schedule the resis- tive bond problem was virtually eliminated, TESTING AND RESULTS OF HYBRID 8 typrid 8 was a thermosonfcally bonded hybrié with 2 history of randon wirebond failures.“ Inters nittent all faflures which exhibited Tittle or no intermetallic formation focused our attent on to possible die pad contanination. An Auger analysis was. then perforned on several devices to identity possible surface contaminants, and SIM photos vere taken of the bonding pad: andthe corresponding ball bond (see Fig. 3 and Fig. 4). She Auger analysis showed very Nigh carbon’ con~ tamination (60 - 80%) and agoroxinately 5% Fluorine to.a depth of 150 Aon aluminum metal s~ zetion,. The Auger analysis for the pad and ball Shown in Fig. Sand Fig. 4 respectively can be found in Tobie TIT. We imediately began investigating the history involved with the die that we were using, and found that they had been improperly stared for over a year, lot and slice traceability had been lost, and that these particular die had 2 history of fluorine contanination similar to hyorid A, Production bonding was stopped and a sampling plan to test all of the die prior to releasing them to production was instituted, The die testing consisted of Auger and ESCA analysis on a selected sample which was followed by assembling and environmentally testing the renainder of that sanple before the die would be released to production. This type of initial testing allowed us to establish threshold limits for various contaninant levels. Once an adequate data base was obtained with the above threshold limits, testing could be reduced without sacri- Ficing’ reliability, ‘To overcome, the excessive carbon contamination on the die, an cxygen-plasna, cleaning epersticn vas. performed Just prior. to bonding, This... cliitnated post of the slirface contanination present. atthe surface. ‘The higer and €SCk analysis for two samples (Box 37 and Box 49) Showed moderate Tevels of fluorine. contamination and that the fluorine was bound as a metallic Fluoride (binding energies for fluorine for Sox 37 and 49 were 685.8 and 685.4. respectively). ‘nce’ the binding energies for all of the elenents were anelyzed and compared 4t was apparent that the fluorine was bonded with aluninum. The results of ‘the Auger and ESCA analysts can be found in Table TVs Eighteen hybrids were then built using the standard assembly processes and sequence with Box 37 and Box 43 die. These units would establish the bondability of relatively low contaminated metal fluorine die. After the 18 devices were bonded, 4 units (2"from Box 37 and Zifrom Box 49)y were destructively bond pulled “after they received the naraal nil-std environ~ ental conditioning. These devices were Used as B control sample,The sequence of assenbly and environmental conditioning can be found in Table V. Six units were then baked for one hour at 300°; delidded, and destructively wire pulled. This conditioning would accelerate any die pad con- tamination to. 2 failure point, and would allow tus to study faflure mechanisms. The Fenaining B units woulg then be baked an” additional. three hours at 300°C, delidded, and destrudtively pulled to further cull out any margirfal bonds. After all of the devices were pull tested and ‘the data analyzed, it was now evident that moderate metal. fluoride contamination could be bonded and produce reliable bonds. The wire pull analysis for the 18 units can be found in Table ML. Additional testing was then performed identically ‘to the previous units using die that had various fluorine contamination levels to determine, if possible, a maximum fluorine contamination’ level. The three groups of die used in these tests were Box X, Box 42, and Box $3, The Auger data for these’ boxes’ can be found in Table VII. Witn each increase in fluorine level, the wire feilure mode 1, ball lifts, increased until the device failgd the .5 om pull after the 4 hour bake at 300°C, Microsections of the bonds adjacent to ball failures, and pictures fron a SEH (see Figs. 5, 6 & 7) showed the failure point to be the first intermetallic layer between the gold ball and the Au/Al intermetallic of the bonded aluminun pad. concLusroN Comprehensive testing of Hybrids A and B defini- tely show that the presence of fluorine on a sinum bond pads fs detrimental to the reliability of gold wire bonds. Both the bonding state of the fluorine and the quantity of fluorine present will affect the ball bond failure mechanism. Fluorine that is present asa fluorocarbon polymer foras a barrier to intermetallic forma- ‘tion and inhibits bonding performed on standard «bond sthedules, In spite of the barrier, a thermoconpression schedule was developed’ that would produce reliable bonds on pads containing less than 4% fluorine. Fluorine that is present as 2 metallic fluoride increases the rate of intermetallic formation rather than acting as a barrier to bonding. ‘Thus, initial bond strengths are high but degrade severley over the life of the part. The raxinum allovable anount of fluorine present as a metallic fluoride was found to be 6. While reliable bonding can be accomplished when sma?) quantities of fluorine are present, ideally, the bond pads should be free of fluorine. No practical method of cleaning was found that would renove either type of fluorine. It is Clear that a team effort between both the hybrid manufacturers and the integrated circuit manu facturers will be needed to effect a long-term solution to this problem. tet THRE 01, AUGER ANALYSIS OF AGL FILIRE poe waa pax snr | arome aearive « 4] ase nee foo mim 9 lowe es £ [are Hee ee eh Set Se rover tt see wpe ie 9 fess pst] SHMLE IV, AUGER AND ESCA AWLISIS CF BOHES 97 6 69 sete 1. Sone some eae An 30% ae soo some [sao tirs Seow vires | mow Cine” ee LFTs aa re aa we : ne ox| oasis | seers ‘srote agUaTIVE § no| “tee feet} se UE at ay | mae | 0 2a as 3 | kick | ako ER ee » | Sol . 83 8 so) | wr | oo ze me - | G| Mat | fo 33 Be 2) 3 | Soe ss 83 BS wo]