Manufacturing processes for fabrication of flip-chip micro-bumps used in microelectronic packaging: An overview

Abstract

Electronic packaging is the methodology for connecting and interfacing the chip technology with a system and the physical world. The objective of packaging is to ensure that the devices and interconnections are packaged efficiently and reliably. Chip–package interconnection technologies currently used in the semiconductor industry include wire bonding, tape automated bonding and flip-chip solder bump connection. Among these interconnection techniques, the flip-chip bumping technology is commonly used in advanced electronic packages since this interconnection is an area array configuration so that the entire surface of the chip can be covered with bumps for the highest possible input/output (I/O) counts. The present article reviews the manufacturing processes for the fabrication of flip-chip bumps for chip–package interconnection. Various solder bumping technologies used in high-volume production include evaporation, solder paste screening and electroplating. Evaporation process produces highly reliable bumps, but it is extremely expensive and is limited to lead or lead-rich solders. Solder paste screening is cost-effective, but issues related to excessive void formation limits the process to low-end products. On the other hand, electrochemical fabrication of flip-chip bumps is an extremely selective and efficient process, which is extendible to finer pitch, larger wafers and a variety of solder compositions, including lead-free alloys. Electrochemically fabricated copper pillar bumps offer fine pitch capabilities with excellent electromigration performance. Due to these virtues, the copper pillar bumping technology is emerging as a lead-free bumping technology option for high-performance electronic packaging.