Ultrasonic Bonding Interface Degradation Characteristics of Gold-Coated Silver Wire for Semiconductor Packaging

Abstract

Gold-coated silver wire was developed to alleviate the high cost of Au wire used in semiconductor packaging. Ball-bonding and stitch-bonding techniques were used to fabricate the dummy packaging material, comprising 97.3 % Ag, 97.3% Au-Coated Ag, and 99.99 %Au wires. The wire ball shear test (BST), the wire ball pull test (BPT), and the microstructural attributes of the ultrasonic bonding interfaces were compared with the initial properties, both before and after the highly accelerated stress test (HAST), conducted at 130 ℃ and 85% relative humidity (RH). The initial bonding strength for all the wire variants was ?23~24 gf. Following the HAST, the bonding strength of the Ag wire, the Au-coated Ag wire, and the Au wire decreased by approximately 75 %, 47 %, and 17 %, respectively. The microstructure analysis revealed that cracks developed and propagated at the ends of the interface and that the Au-rich Au-Al intermetallic compound (IMC) inhibited the propagation of the crack at the ACA/Au wire interface. Additionally, it was discovered that the presence of the Ag-Au-Al IMC at the interface of the ACA wire reduced Kirkendall voids, which act as a barrier to Au-Al interdiffusion.