Effect of filler concentration of rubbery shear and bulk modulus of molding compounds

In the electronics industry epoxy molding compounds, underfills and adhesives are used for the packaging of electronic components. These materials are applied in liquid form, cured at elevated temperatures and then cooled down to room temperature. During these processing steps residual stresses are built up resulting from both cure and thermal shrinkage. In order to minimize these stresses inorganic fillers are added. These fillers have several opposing effects on the residual stresses because they decrease the cure shrinkage and thermal contraction but increase the modulus below and above the glass transition temperature. In this paper an extensive study on the cure-dependent rubbery moduli of a series of silica spheres filled epoxy resins is carried out both experimentally and theoretically. Low frequency dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) was used to measure the rubbery modulus build-up during cure. A model based on scaling analysis was applied to describe the evolution of the rubbery shear modulus. The effect of the filler percentage on the rubbery shear and bulk moduli as well as the coefficients of thermal expansion were measured and compared with models from the theory of particulate-filled composites.     

D2-FBGA热循环载荷下的结构参数优化

利用动态机械分析仪(DMA),测定环氧模塑封材料(EMC)的粘弹性数据;经过数据拟合处理,得到有限元仿真所需的相关参数.将D2-FBGA中芯片厚度、粘结剂厚度、部分EMC厚度及基板厚度作为优化参数,选用正交实验设计,建立了这四个参数的正交表;并用MSC、 Marc,计算了D2-FBGA在热循环载荷下的热应力分布.通过统计软件stata,建立了最大等效应力与上述参数的关系的回归方程;分析了各个结构参数对器件最大等效应力的影响程度;使用单纯形法,得出一组最优结构参数及对应的最大等效应力值.结果表明:通过优化,器件的最大等效应力从(90.58 MPa)下降到66.84 MPa,优化效果明显.     

Aqueous-Develop,Photosensitive Polynorbornene Dielectric: Optimization of Mechanical and Electrical Properties

The impact of thermal cure conditions on the mechanical and electrical properties of an epoxy cross-linked network incorporating a polynorbornene (PNB) dielectric polymer was studied. The cross-linking of the dielectric composition was achieved by an acid-catalyzed cationic cure reaction initiated by either thermal or photolytic activation of a photoacid generator. It is proposed that the observed mechanical and electrical properties of the fully cured polymer composition are the result of the development of a three-dimensional cross-linked network tying together the PNB polymer and multifunctional epoxy additives. The epoxy ring-opening reaction was measured using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The reduced modulus, internal film stress, dielectric constant, and swelling behavior of cross-linked films were studied as a function of curing temperature. Trends in the observed properties are explained by formation of a three-dimensional cross-linked network and degradation of the cross-links between the multifunctional epoxy additives at high temperature. It was also found that exposure of the film to aqueous base plays a role in the cure process and has a positive effect on the final properties. The optimum values of modulus, dielectric constant, residual stress, and moisture content were found for films cured at 160°C for 1 h. This relatively low cure temperature is potentially advantageous in device assembly and processing.     

Characterization of the viscoelastic properties of an epoxy molding compound during cure

In the electronics industry epoxy molding compounds, underfills and adhesives are used for the packaging of electronic components. These materials are applied in liquid form, cured at elevated temperatures and then cooled down to room temperature. During these processing steps residual stresses are built up resulting from both cure and thermal shrinkage. These residual stresses add up to the stresses generated during thermal cycling and mechanical loading and may eventually lead to product failure.The viscoelastic properties of the encapsulation material depend highly on temperature and degree of cure. This paper investigates the increase of elastic modulus and the changes in the viscoelastic behavior of an epoxy molding compound, during the curing process. This is done using the shear setup of a Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer DMA-Q800. The cure dependent viscoelastic behavior is determined during heating scans of an intermittent cure experiment. In such an experiment the material is partially cured and then followed by a heating scan at 2 °C/min. During this heating scan continuous frequency sweeps are performed and the shear modulus is extracted. The Time–Temperature superposition principle is applied and the viscoelastic shear mastercurve is extracted. Analyzing the shear modulus, the cure dependent viscoelastic material behavior was modeled using the cure dependent glass transition temperature as a reference and a cure dependent rubbery modulus. It is shown that partial curing would increase the glass transition temperature and rubbery shear modulus. It also shifts the viscoelastic mastercurve to the higher time domain. Taking T_g as the reference temperature for different heating scans, the mastercurves collapse to one graph.In addition, using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC), the growth of the glass transition temperature, $T_g^{\mathit{DSC}}$, with respect to the conversion level is obtained. These values are coupled to the values of glass transition temperature in DMA apparatus, $T_g^{\mathit{DMA}}$, for calculating the conversion level at each step of curing process in shear mode test.     

Modeling and characterization of molding compound properties during cure

During the encapsulation of electronic components stresses are generated due to curing effects and the difference in thermal shrinkage between molding compound and die. These residual stresses add up to the stresses generated during thermal cycling and mechanical loading and may eventually lead to product failure. In this paper we focus on three commercial molding compounds and analyze in detail the increase in elastic modulus and the change in viscoelastic behaviour during cure. This was done with a special shear tool which allows to measure mechanical properties with sufficient accuracy in the liquid as well as in the solid state. The cure dependent viscoelastic material behaviour was modeled using a cure dependent shift factor and rubber modulus.The viscoelastic behaviour of the molding compounds is also shown not to be stable. During postcure the materials slowly continue to crosslink thereby systematically changing their viscoelastic behaviour. The material models presented here therefore only account for the initial curing stage and do not include postcure.     

Prediction of cure induced warpage of micro-electronic products

Prediction of residual stresses in micro-electronic devises is an important issue. Virtual prototyping is used to minimize residual stresses in order to prevent failure or malfunction of electronic products.Already during encapsulation stresses build up due to polymerization induced shrinkage of the molding compound. Differences in coefficient of thermal expansion of the involved materials cause additional stresses during cooling down from molding to ambient temperature. Since industry is availed by reliable prediction methods, detailed material models are required. In electronic packaging, mechanical properties of most of the involved materials have constant mechanical properties. However, the viscoelastic properties of the encapsulation material depends highly on temperature and degree of cure. Reliable predictions of residual stresses require simulation models which take into account the effect of temperature and conversion level.In this paper, properties of molding compound are discussed which are relevant for the prediction of warpage of micro-electronics products. The models for the individual properties are combined to one single model suitable for finite element simulations. The numerical implementation in finite element code is not standard and is done by using user-subroutines.Validation experiments are performed in order to verify the developed material model which is done by measuring and predicting the warpage of a mold map. A Topography and Deformation Measurement (TDM) device is used to measure the deformations at elevated temperatures in a non-intrusive way such that the developed material model could be validated in a broad range of temperature.Finally, simulations are carried out with simplified material models of molding compound. The results of these simulations are compared with results obtained with the cure dependent viscoelastic model and real warpage data. From these comparisons it is concluded that for reliable prediction of warpage, the cure dependent viscoelastic model is has to be used.     

固化残余应力对倒装焊器件热–机械可靠性的影响

采用底充胶的与固化过程相关的粘弹性力学模型,通过有限元仿真的方法,模拟了底充胶的整个固化过程,计算出了热循环加载下硅片、底充胶/硅片界面、底充胶内部的应力分布及其幅值大小.结果表明:底充胶的固化过程及由此产生的固化残余应力不但使得硅片中的最大垂直开裂应力位置偏离中心线达1.6 mm之多,而且还劣化了热循环加载下底充胶中应力幅值约6.25%.最后得出了固化残余应力对倒装焊器件热–机械可靠性的影响是不可忽略的结论.     

固化残余应力对倒装焊器件热-机械可靠性的影响

采用底充胶的与固化过程相关的粘弹性力学模型,通过有限元仿真的方法,模拟了底充胶的整个固化过程,计算出了热循环加载下硅片、底充胶/硅片界面、底充胶内部的应力分布及其幅值大小。结果表明:底充胶的固化过程及由此产生的固化残余应力不但使得硅片中的最大垂直开裂应力位置偏离中心线达1.6 mm之多,而且还劣化了热循环加载下底充胶中应力幅值约6.25%。最后得出了固化残余应力对倒装焊器件热–机械可靠性的影响是不可忽略的结论。     

关于提高环氧塑封料强度的研究

环氧塑封料的强度在电子封装生产中影响了器件的可靠性和工艺操作性。文章就几种影响环氧塑封料强度的因素进行了实验分析,通过对环氧塑封料固化过程中的弯曲强度和弯曲模量的动态检测,并设定一个模拟环氧塑封料在封装工艺中强度变化的判定标准,可以直接判断其工艺适用性（即“断筋”与否）。文章从塑封料组分中填料的含量与粒度分布、固化促进剂种类与含量、固化剂种类、以及相关改性剂等几方面进行了试验研究,总结出其中重要的影响因素。根据实验结果,可以对环氧塑封料产品的强度进行显著的控制和改进。同时,本研究也有利于对环氧塑封料的“翘曲”、“溢料”等性能的研究和改善。     

Preparation and Characterization of a Novel Epoxy Molding Compound with Low Storage Modulus at High Temperature and Low Glass-Transition Temperature

Epoxy molding compound (EMC) has been widely used as a main material for encapsulation and protection of semiconductor packages because of its low cost, high moisture resistance, high heat resistance, and good mechanical performance. Due to the extensive application of lead-free solder in place of Sn-Pb, soldering temperature is higher than before; this demands that EMC, which is usually used for lead-free solder, should have extremely low thermal stress and excellent stability at elevated temperatures. In this work, 1,3-propanediol bis(4-aminobenzoate) (PBA) was added to an EMC product to form a novel epoxy molding compound (FEMC). PBA had very limited effect on the process feasibility of EMC, and caused reduction of the storage modulus by 40% to 50% at high temperatures and reduction of the glass-transition temperature by more than 10°C, which are very helpful to reduce thermal stress buildup during high-temperature soldering processes. The increases of the tab pull force of copper- and silver-plated lead frames within EMC due to PBA were up to 58% and 117%, respectively. With increasing PBA content in the EMC, water absorption increased in a linear fashion, so the amount of PBA added to the EMC should be limited, preferably to not more than 1%.     

PBGA器件固化残余应力的有限元分析

采用有限元分析软件模拟研究了PBGA器件在先固化再进行温度加载和直接从温度循环开始加载两种情况下,固化过程对 PBGA 器件的影响,发现固化过程不仅改变了器件中芯片的应力分布,而且劣化了 DA(环氧树脂)材料与芯片接触面的应力值,也同时使得 BT 材料基底中的应力分布产生较大的改变。并且对 DA 材料选用几种不同的固化时间,发现固化时间的不同对器件封装残余应力的大小和最大应力位置有重要的影响,这为预测芯片的垂直开裂的位置提供了很好的依据。     

Evolution of residual-inplane stress during adhesive curing and recuring in chip-on-board packages

The residual stress induced in assembly is a common concern in electronic packaging, especially for those chips sensitive to residual stress. On chip-on-board (COB) packages, bisphenol A-type epoxy adhesive is applied to attach the chip to the substrate board. Silicon piezoresistive sensors are used to record residual stresses and stress evolution during adhesive curing. After 20-days storage in air at room temperature after curing, the residual stresses accumulate significantly in the recuring process, and after additional curing, the residual stress stabilizes at a relatively low level. Thermal analysis of the adhesive was performed to identify the incomplete cure of the adhesive after the first curing process.     

Determination of residual strains of the EMC in PBGA during manufacturing and IR solder reflow processes

Even though recently published results indicated that residual strains of the epoxy molding compound (EMC) play a key role on the warpage values and shapes of the plastic ball grid array (PBGA) packages, it is still unknown about how these residual strains build up and change during the manufacturing and infrared (IR) solder reflow processes. The purpose of this study is to quantify the residual strains of the EMC in the PBGA packages during the aforementioned processes using a combination of experimental, theoretical and numerical approaches. In the experiments, a full-field shadow moiré is used for measuring their real-time out-of-plane deformation (warpage), during heating and cooling conditions, of two types of the PBGA specimens (without a silicon chip inside) with the same EMC but different substrates (with glass transition temperature T_g = 172 and 202 °C). Furthermore, Timoshenko’s bi-material theory associated with the measured and temperature-dependent elastic moduli and coefficients of thermal expansion for the EMC and substrates is applied for extracting residual strains of the EMC from shadow moiré results. In the analysis, the finite element method cooperating with those determined residual strains is employed to numerically simulate the thermal-induced deformations of the PBGA specimens, in order to verify mechanics. The full-field warpage of the specimens from shadow moiré is documented before and after post-mold curing, solder reflow and during the temperature cycling (from room temperature to 260 °C). The residual strains of the EMC for the specimens with low-T_g and high-T_g substrates after post-mold curing are found to be 0.059% and 0.134%, respectively, which double those before post-mold curing, and further down to 0.035% and 0.08% after the first thermal cycling. After the first cycling, the residual strains remain almost constant during heating and cooling processes. This phenomenon is also observed at lead-free solder reflow processes. Therefore, the residual strains of the EMC induced by the chemical shrinkage of the EMC curing and possibly mold flow pressure are different between the specimens with low-T_g and high-T_g substrates, and these residual strains could change during post-mold curing and the first solder reflow processes.     

P-V-T-C equation for epoxy molding compound

The isothermal and isobaric volume shrinkage is measured by a single-plunger-type dilatometer for epoxy molding compound (EMC). This device has been found suitable for measuring volume change of thermosetting materials such as commercial EMC under isothermal and isobaric conditions. Moreover, the degree of cure (conversion) was determined by a differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Combining volume change and conversion, a mathematic pressure-volume-temperature-cure (P-V-T-C) model is proposed to describe the relationship between volume shrinkage, pressure, temperature and conversion. The P-V-T-C equation can be simply expressed as VS(P,T,C)=F/sub 1/(P,T)/spl middot/C/sup F2(P,T)/. This equation can well describe historical profiles of volume shrinkage under specified isothermal and isobaric states. From the predicted results, volume shrinkage under different pressure levels in any specified temperature can be approximated as and it obeys the principle of linearity. With the help of this model, together with three-dimensional mold filling simulation, engineers will be able to predict warpage and residual stresses for a package after molding.     

Numerical analysis of the warpage problem in TSOP

The reliability and the solderability of thin small outline package (TSOP) are significantly affected by the warpage that is generated after epoxy molding compound (EMC) molding process. This warpage problem mainly results from the mismatch of material properties such as Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and the geometric structure of each component for TSOP. The optimization of both material properties and geometric structures using the numerical analysis is necessary to reduce the warpage of TSOP. However, there are still some limitations for the numerical analysis to obtain proper results consistent with the practical warpage values. In this paper, the numerical analysis is performed under the assumption of elastic behavior for EMC. Furthermore, to solve the limitations, the material properties at the molding temperature and the degree of reaction rate at the end of the molding process of EMC are considered together for the analysis. This numerical analysis gives the higher warpage values than the measured ones, and is applicable to the practical design of the reliable electronic package.     

环氧塑封料绿色环保化过程中的问题研究

本文以国内电子封装产业中绿色环保型环氧塑封料的使用情况为背景,通过对其可靠性和工艺成型性的深入分析,结合具体实例的比较,总结出环氧塑封料向高性能和绿色环保方向发展过程中的若干问题,并提出针对这些问题的相关建议。     

PBGA中环氧模塑封装材料的热力学应力分析

本文采用有限元模拟的方法,对塑封焊球栅阵列PBGA的再回流焊接过程及其后的热循环进行了仿真,其中环氧模塑封装材料EMC采用了粘弹性和线弹性两种材料模式。仿真中主要对EMC再回流焊接过程产生的残余应力和热循环载荷下的热应力／应变进行了分析;也讨论了EMC材料模式对应力值的影响。结果表明:线弹性模式的EMC的应力值明显高于粘弹性模式的;在热循环载荷下EMC中应力水平并不高,但开裂应变却非常高,因此在EMC中很可能引发疲劳裂纹。     

基于扇出型封装塑封材料性能的表征研究

扇出型封装在塑封过程中会出现芯片偏移及翘曲等缺陷,详细了解环氧塑封材料(EMC)的特性能够准确预测封装材料、结构、塑封工艺对塑封效果的影响。针对用于扇出型封装的EMC材料采用动态机械分析仪、差示扫描量热仪、流变仪测试其动态力学性能、固化动力学性能、流变学性能和热容,并建立可用于有限元分析的材料特性数学模型。结果表明,EMC在150℃等温固化60 min后具有最少残余固化;100℃环境下黏度随温度增加速率最快;时温等效原理可预测实验频率以外的力学行为。模型曲线与实验数据的拟合优度均大于0.982,材料表征模型满足准确性与适用性的要求。     

In process stress analysis of flip-chip assemblies during underfill cure

Low cost flip chip on board assemblies are analyzed during the underfill cure process to determine residual stress generation. In situ stress measurements are performed over the active face of the die during processing and relative in-plane stresses are measured. Experimental measurements are made using flip-chip test vehicles, based on the Sandia National Laboratories’ ATC04 assembly test chip. Four different commercial underfill materials have been evaluated and a relative comparison is presented with respect to the residual stresses produced by each underfill on the flip-chip assemblies. Significant stress variations are observed between the four underfills studied. Correlation between the glass transition temperature (T_g) and storage modulus (G^′) are made relative to residual stresses produced during underfill cure. Stress relaxation characteristics are also evaluated for the low cost flip-chip assemblies.     

3D FEM Simulations of Drop Test Reliability on 3D-WLP: Effects of Solder Reflow Residual Stress and Molding Resin Parameters

Numerous three-dimensional (3D) packaging technologies are currently used for 3D integration. 3D-wafer level package (3D-WLP) appears to be a way to keep increasing the density of the microelectronic components. The reliability of 3D components has to be evaluated on mechanical demonstrators with daisy chains before real production. Numerical modeling is acknowledged as a very efficient tool for design optimization. In this paper, 3D finite-elements calculations are carried out to analyze the effects of molding resin’s mechanical properties and thickness on the 3D component’s dynamic response under drop loading conditions. Residual stress generated by solder reflow is also discussed. The influences of residual stresses on the numerical estimation of the component behavior during drop loading are studied. Solder reflow residual stresses have an impact on solder plastic strain and die equivalent stress calculations. We have compared the result of two numerical drop test models. Stress-free initial conduction is introduced for the first model. Solder reflow residual stresses are considered as the initial condition for the second drop test model. Quantitative and qualitative comparisons are carried out to show the effect of residual stress in drop test calculations. For the effect of molding resin thickness on the component behavior under drop loading, the stress-free initial condition is considered. The effect of the molding resin’s thickness on critical area location is discussed. The solder bump maximum plastic shear strain and the silicon die maximum equivalent stress are used as reliability criteria. Numerical submodeling techniques are used to increase calculation accuracy. Numerical results have contributed to the design optimization of the 3D-WLP component.