Study of factors affecting the hardness of ball bonds in copper wire bonding

Copper wire bonding has gained popularity due to its economic advantage and superior electrical performance. However, copper is harder than gold, and replacing gold wire with copper wire introduces hardness related issues. This article reports investigations of the properties including microhardness of the copper balls bonded using ϕ25.4-μm copper wire and different combinations of electronic-flame-off (EFO) current and firing time settings with forming gas (5%H2 and 95%N2) as the inert cover gas. FABs with an identical diameter, obtained under different EFO firing conditions, were ball bonded with the same wire bonding parameters established using design of experiments. Microhardness tests were then performed on the cross-section of the bonded balls. The study revealed that ultrasonic generator current is the most significant factor to increase the bonded mashed ball diameter, ball shear and shear per unit area and to decrease the ball height. The microhardness of bonded copper balls is related to the EFO parameters, with FABs obtained by higher EFO current being softer. The lower hardness is attributed to the higher maximum temperature during the FAB melting state.