Two big reliability problems in advanced packaging

By Zachariah Peterson, Electronics360
(May 9, 2024)

Even with advanced packaging, what’s old eventually becomes new again, and leads to reliability challenges in packaging assemblies and substrates. Chips have been packing more compute into smaller spaces ever since people have been writing about chips (and packaging). The result in on-die interconnects and in substrates has been an increase in current density, which creates challenges in terms of heat and electromigration.

Techniques to handle heat were much easier in chips built from monolithic dies. Today, newer advanced components have embraced heterogeneous integration and are being built from chiplets. Concerns relating to electromigration and thermo-mechanical stresses are two of the major reliability factors the packaging industry needs to overcome. There is potentially a path forward that can be accomplished in EDA software, but this requires collaboration with OSATs and creation of assembly development kits (ADKs), which are still in their infancy and require more research to achieve effectiveness.

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