The effects of chip and substrate thickness on the reliability of ACA bonded flip chip joints

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of chip and substrate thickness on the thermal cycling reliability of flip chip joints assembled with anisotropic conductive adhesives (ACA) on FR‐4 substrates.Design/methodology/approachFour test lots were assembled with two substrates and two test chips. The thicknesses of the substrates were 710 and 100 μm and the thicknesses of the chips were 480 and 80 μm. To study the effect of the bonding pressure each test lot contained four test series bonded with four different bonding pressures. The reliability of the test samples was studied using a temperature cycling test.FindingsThe reliability of the test lots varied widely during the test. The test lot with a thin substrate and thin chip demonstrated considerably better reliability than the other test lots. In addition, the test lots had different failure mechanisms. After the test delamination was found in every test lot except the one assembled with the thin chip and the thin substrate.Originality/valueThe work shows that the thermal cycling reliability of ACA flip chip joints can be markedly increased by using thinned chips or reducing the thickness of the substrate.