Virtual qualification of moisture induced failures of advanced packages

This paper presents a combined numerical and experimental methodology for predicting and preventing moisture induced failures in encapsulated packages. Prevention of such failures will enable efficient and optimal pre-selection of materials, their interfaces and geometric design with respect to the desired resistance to moisture. This virtual qualification methodology is illustrated for a specific BGA package which showed 50% failures (broken stitch-bonds) during HAST testing due to excessive warpage and/or delamination of different interfaces. For three different material combinations the moisture diffusion during the HAST test is predicted and subsequently thermo-mechanical-moisture simulations are performed where the effects of hygro-swelling, vapor pressure, thermal expansion and delamination on the failure mechanisms are predicted. The comparison of the simulation results of the different molding compounds with the observations of HAST testing indicates that the developed methods and models can predict the observed trends. Application of the presented methodology will result in shorter time-to-market and significant cost reduction due to reduced trial-and-error design cycles and effective material usage.