Chemical characterization of failures and process materials for microelectronics assembly

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the chemical characterization of failures and process materials for microelectronics assembly.

The analytical techniques used for chemical structures and compositions including Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy, and energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy are conducted.

The residues on the golden finger are identified to be the flux used in the assembly processes. Besides, the contaminants on the processed and incoming connector pins are verified to be polyamides (–CONH functional groups) from housing material's residue. Three liquid fluxes used in wave soldering are analyzed by their chemical structure. One flux showing the OH groups at 3430 cm⁻¹ indicates higher acid contents. This consists with the acidic values specified by the supplier. Also, the solder mask under study has ever appeared peeled‐off issue. The FTIR spectra results indicated 62.2 percent degree of curing while vendor's spec is above 70 percent.

The establishment of the Infrared spectra database for fluxes and process materials help determine the root cause of the contaminants to reduce re‐occurrence of similar problems and thus enhance the manufacturing capability. The infrared spectrophotometry technique can be used by professional original design manufacturing and/or electronics manufacturing service, providers to investigate board/component defects during product pilot run stage and volume production.