Determination of Initial Crack Strength of Silicon DieUsing Acoustic Emission Technique

The current market demand for high-efficiency, high-performance, small-sized electronic products has focused attention on the use of three-dimensional (3D) integrated circuits (IC) in the design of electronic packaging. Silicon wafers can be ground and polished to reduce their thickness and increase the chip stacking density. However, microcracks can result from the thinning and stacking process or during use of an electronic device over time; therefore, estimation of the cracking strength is an important issue in 3D IC packaging. This research combined the ball breaker test (BBT) with an acoustic emission (AE) system to measure the allowable force on a silicon die. To estimate the initial crack strength of a silicon die, the BBT was combined with finite-element (FE) analysis. The AE system can detect the initial crack and the subsequent bulk failure of the silicon die individually, thus avoiding overestimation of the die strength. In addition, the results of the modified ball breaker test showed that edge chipping did not affect the silicon die strength. However, the failure force and silicon die strength were reduced as the surface roughness of the test specimen increased. Thus, surface roughness must be controlled in the BBT to prevent underestimation of the silicon die strength.