Direct bonding of silicon and silicon dioxide thin films is now widely used in industry for SOI (Silicon on Insulator) elaboration for instance or in some backside imager manufacturing processes which are now at a stage of mass production processes. Silicon oxide capping layer is very often used as a convenient bonding layer allowing efficient topography planarization with classical CMP (Chemical Mechanical Planarization) process. Thus silicon oxide//silicon oxide direct bonding has been very developed when bonding interface behaviour deserves to be deeply studied. The bonding energy evolution is one of the key parameters and has been widely studied for many years [1,2,3]. Notably, water edge penetration at the bonding interface after the direct bonding was reported recently [4,5]. This work is then focused on the impact of water edge penetration on silicon oxide direct bonding energy values. 200 mm <001> silicon wafers are thermally oxidized at 950 °C under steam atmosphere in order to growth 145 nm of silicon dioxide thin film. After classical RCA cleaning, these wafers are bonded at room temperature and ambient pressure. Just after the bonding, they are diced into 2 cm wide beams and annealed at 300 °C for bonding energy measurement under anhydrous atmosphere [3]. But after the dicing, the atmospheric water can start to penetrate the direct bonding interface. Two times are then considered: t1 is the time between the dicing and the annealing steps and t2 is the time between the annealing and the energy measurement. The bonding energy dependence regarding t1 and t2 is studied. It will be shown that increasing t1 is beneficial for the oxide/oxide bonding energy in contrary to t2 increase. A mechanism for bonding evolution will be proposed to explain these results mainly based on water stress corrosion influence. The annealing atmosphere will also be pointed out to explain some behaviours. Recommendations for storage time and atmosphere as well as for annealing conditions could then be formulated to make bonding energy values at the wafer edge suitable for subsequent device elaborations. REFERENCES [1] G. Kräuter, A. Schumacher, U. Gösele, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 70 (3), 271–275 (1998). [2] F. Fournel, C. Martin-Cocher, V. Larrey, H. Moriceau, F. Rieutord, WaferBond International Conference Brunswick Germany (2015) [3] F. Fournel, L. Continni, C. Morales, J. Da Fonseca, H. Moriceau, F. Rieutord, A. Barthelemy, I. Radu, J. Appl. Phys., 111, 104907 (2012) [4] M. Tedjini, F. Fournel, V. Larrey, F. Rieutord, WaferBond International Conference, Brunswick Germany (2015) [5] M. Tedjini, F. Fournel, H. Moriceau, V. Larrey, D. Landru, O. Kononchuk, S. Tardif, F. Rieutord, Submitted to Journal of Applied Physics.