Damage mechanisms in copper-aluminum wirebond under high temperature operation

Wire bonding is predominant mode of interconnect in electronics packaging. Traditionally material used for wire bonding is gold. But industry is slowly replacing gold wire bond by copper-aluminum wire bond because of the lower cost and better mechanical properties than gold, such as high strength, high thermal conductivity etc. Numerous studies have been done to analyze failure mechanism of Cu-Al wire bonds. Cu-Al interface is a predominant location for failure of the wirebond interconnects. In this paper, the use of intermetallic thickness as leading indicator-of-failure for prognostication of remaining useful life for Cu-Al wire bond interconnects has been studied. For analysis, 32 pin chip scale packages were used. Packages were aged isothermally at 200°C and 250°C for 10 days. Packages were withdrawn periodically after 24 hours and its IMC thickness was measured using SEM. The parts have been prognosticated for accrued damage and remaining useful life in current or anticipated future deployment environment. The presented methodology uses evolution of the IMC thickness in conjunction with the Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm to identify accrued damage in wire bond subjected to thermal aging. The proposed method can be used for equivalency of damage accrued in Cu-Al parts subjected to multiple thermal aging environments.