The control of thermally-induced warpage on electronic packages is an important issue during their fabrication process and assembly. Apart from a commonly-used finite element method and experimental methods for thermally-induced warpage analysis of the packages, it still needs a fundamental theory to provide an insight of mechanics to assist and further check the finite element and experiment-obtained results, especially for critical parameter identification. This study aims to take a close look into the well-known, closed-form Suhir theory for calculating thermally-induced deformation of die-substrate assembly and correlate it with a finite element analysis, and further to propose a new Suhir-solution-based theory for predicting the thermal deformation of flip-chip packages. Through this study, the shear-effect region has been found and its effect on curvature distribution over entire package length and corresponding warpage have been examined in terms of elastic modulus and thickness of underfills. The other parameters such as extended substrate and fillets of underfill are also studied. The limitation and feasibility of the theoretical solution to thermal deformation (warpage) prediction of flip-chip packages are discussed in detail by comparing with the finite element and moiri experimental results in this study.

Recently, the 3D or stacked-die packages become increasingly popular for packaging ICs into a system or subsystem to satisfy the needs of low cost, small form factor, and high performance. For the applications of these packages, IC silicon wafers have to be ground to be relatively thin through the wafer-thinning processes (such as grinding, polishing, and plasma etching). The strength of dies has to be determined for the design requirement and reliability assurance of the packages. From the published data, there still exist some issues, including a large scatter existed in die strength data and difficulties in differentiating the causes of the low strength between from the wafer grinding and from wafer sawing by either the three-point bending or four-point bending test. The purposes of this study are to develop new, reliable, and simple test methods for determination of die strength, in order to improve the data scatter, and to provide a solution for differentiating the factors that affect the variability of die strength for finding out the causes of the weakness of the die strength. In this study, two new test methods, point-loaded circular plate with simple supports test (PLT-I) and point-loaded plate on elastic foundation test (PLT-II), are proposed and then evaluated by testing two groups of silicon dies with different surface conditions. The surface conditions (roughness) of the specimens are determined by atomic force microscopy and correlated to failure strength. The failure forces from both tests have to be modified by using maximum stress obtained from theories or finite element analyses to obtain the failure strength. The test results are compared to each other and further with a widely used four-point bending test. The results suggest that, unlike the four-point bending test suffering the chipping effect, both methods provide very consistent data with a small scatter for each group of specimens and can be used for identifying the effect of surface grinding (roughness) on the die strength. It is also shown that the die strength is highly dependent on the surface roughness. Accordingly, these two methods can provide not only a (biaxial) stress field similar to temperature-loaded die in the packages, but also simple, feasible, reliable, and chipping-free tests for silicon dies of dummy or real IC chips, without strict geometrical limitation, such as beam-type geometry for the three-point or four-point bending test.

This study describes the use of ultrasonic-assisted end milling to improve the quality of the machined surface of hard Stavax (modified AISI 420) mold steel and to reduce the amount of work involved in the final polishing process. The effects of input voltage, the stretch length and cutter holding force on the amplitude of the ultrasonic vibration used were measured. The effect of ultrasonic frequency (25 and 50 kHz) and amplitude (0, 2.20 and 3.68 μm) as well as the effect of the rake angle (6° and −6°) and the cutter helix angle (25°, 35° and 45°) on tool wear and quality of the workpiece surface finish were also investigated. It was found that the ultrasonic amplitude increased with cutter stretch length and input voltage, as expected. The amplitude remained constant when the cutter holding force exceeded 15 N. The experimental results showed that the ultrasonic amplitude had an optimum value with respect to surface finish. However, large amplitude ultrasonics did not necessarily improve quality. Furthermore, the cutters used for ultrasonic-assisted milling show less wear than those used for normal milling. It was also found that a positive rake angle and cutters with a large helix angle gave a better surface finish.