Surface analysis of aluminum bonding pads in flash memory multichip packaging

Abstract

Although gold wire bonding techniques have already matured in semiconductor manufacturing, weakly bonded wires in semiconductor chip assembly can jeopardize the reliability of the final product. In this paper, weakly bonded or failed aluminum bonding pads are analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Auger electron Spectroscopy (AES), and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) to investigate potential contaminants on the bond pad. We found the source of contaminants is related to the dry etching process in the previous manufacturing step, and fluorocarbon plasma etching of a passivation layer showed meaningful evidence of the formation of fluorinated by-products of AlFx on the bond pads. Surface analysis of the contaminated aluminum layer revealed the presence of fluorinated compounds AlOFx, Al(OF)x, Al(OH)x, and CFx.