Processing, Bumping and Assembly of Single Chip Plated Ni/Pd over ALCAP Bond Pads for Flip Chip Applications and Prototyping

Abstract

For Designer and Engineers, it is common during the process development cycle for new products to have limitations on the materials that are available for the prototype work. Most SMT devices are readily available in different formats/solder alloys to satisfy most of the needs for passive needs. However, many times IC devices are limited to what is available from the fab or an IC broker. These limitations can mean that die only come in aluminum, wirebond ready I/O metallization or that the silicon wafers already sawn and in single die formats. For applications where advancement in performance or miniaturization is needed, and the benefits of flip chip technology are attractive, then it is not trivial to be able to use these die. In these cases, the process of adding solderable plating technologies to the I/O bond pads is very favorable. The technologies are currently run for wafer lever plating baths, but very little has been done to evaluate single chip plating. Work in plating Ni/Pd onto the ALCAP structure has been performed to evaluate the process and feasibility of processing groups of singulated die with aluminum bond pads. The work to be detailed in this paper will go through the chemistries used in the plating process onto an aluminum bond pad that makes it suitable for flip chip processes. Several bumping structures, such as solder bumping over this plating technology and plating over gold or copper stud bumps, are evaluated. A process for bumping the flip chips is also detailed. The data for shear testing of the 10 variations before and after 500 liquid thermal shock cycles is detailed. Finally, a comprehensive study for assembly of solder bumped flip chips, with the selective plating process, will be detailed as well as a detailed analysis of the TC reliability of this assembly approach. It will be shown that selective Ni/Pd plating onto single, ALCAP bare die can allow for these typical wirebond die can be used in a practical approach solder flip chip process and provide reasonable reliability results when compared to a mainstream, wafer processed, solder bumped flip chip die.