Publications Details
Using consumer IC packages in harsh high reliability applications
The improvements in purity of molding materials, the IC wafer passivation layers, and manufacturing quality have resulted over the last decade in extremely high reliability in commercial IC packages. In contrast the ceramic/hermetic package world is suffering from limited availability of the newest IC chips, higher cost, larger size, and decreasing quality and fewer manufacturing lines. Traditional manufacturing line qualification tests are a good start for conversion to commercial plastic parts. However, the use of standard sensitive test chips instead of product die is necessary to perform affordable, quantitative evaluations. These test chips have many integrated sensors measuring chemical, mechanical, thermal, and electrical degradation caused by manufacturing and the package environment. Besides visual, electrical test, and burn-in little has been documented on 100% nondestructive screening of plastic molded parts. Based on realistic process control and system engineer cultural expectations, user screening is necessary. Nondestructive tests of moisture and temperature excursion susceptibility are described.