Prediction of interfacial delamination in stacked IC structures using combined experimental and simulation methods

Abstract

Interfacial delamination is an often-observed failure mode in multi-layered IC packaging structures, which will not only influence the yield of wafer processes, but also have direct impact on the packaging reliability. The difference in coefficient of thermal expansion, together with thermal and thermal–mechanical loading are the main driving forces for interfacial delamination. First of all, this type of delamination is considered as a mixed mode of failure at the material interfaces. Hence, at least two stress components are needed to predict its occurrence. However, due to the singular stress field at the interface, one could hardly obtain the correct stresses at the interface. Therefore, a combined experimental–numerical method is used to investigate the initiation and propagation of the interface delamination. The purpose of the experimental shear and tensile tests is to measure the critical loads, at which delamination initiates. Then, a Finite Element (FE) model is constructed to convert the critical load into critical failure data for further numerical investigation. The FE model is so constructed that it reproduces the geometrical configurations of the tests. Due to the singular stress distribution at the interface, the calculated local stresses will be both mesh and residual-stiffness dependent. The influences of the FE parameters on the interface stresses are studied. After that, a progressive failure approach is, in combination with a group of failure criteria and the estimated local critical stresses, applied to predict the initiation and propagation of the delamination between epoxy mould compound and the passivation layer in the Integrated Circuit (IC) for three different package structures. The present method and the obtained results are valuable to determine design rules for IC packaging structures.