Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

Fujitsu HDD (Hard Disk Drive) Defect【July 2002, HDD defect since summer 2002, in personal computers or servers 】
Masayuki Nakao
Institute of Engineering Innovation, School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo

Fujitsu internal Hard Disk Drive (HDD) for personal computers and servers failed at ahigh rate. Under conditions of high temperature and humidity, terminals within the HDD
controller LSI package (produced by another vendor) shorted after a half to one year of useof the HDDs. The short circuit between these terminals was the sealant of the package,
which contained red phosphorus made by Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Sumitomo Bakelite Co.,
who provided the sealant, defended itself stating they used material certified by the
packaging company. It developed into a legal dispute regarding who would takeresponsibility. Free replacements and other corrective actions cost around 10 billion yen.
1. Event
The problem in a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) for personal computers made by Fujitsu
occurred after a half year to a year of use. The defect rate of 0.8% was higher than usual bymore than two digits.
The failures occurred especially under the condition of high temperature and humidity
where the internal pins of the HDD controller LSI package (produced by another vendor)
shorted.
Manufacturers started to receive complaints from their customers about failing drives
from the summer of 2000. IC manufacturers and PC set makers also received numbers ofreports of the same nature in 2001.
2. Course
Manufacturers started to receive complaints from their customers about failing drives
from the summer of 2000. Equipment and IC manufacturers also received numbers ofreports on the same type of problem by 2001.
Fujitsu officially admitted on July 2002 that its certain products contained defective
chips, and replaced such devices without charge for manufacturers of personal computers.
The cost of recalls and replacing faulty disk drives were estimated to be more than 10
billion yen.
Fujitsu claimed that its certain hard drive products contained semiconductor devices
defective in a certain epoxy-molding compound manufactured by Sumitomo Bakelite, andhigh-temperature and humidity caused a short circuit in the controller chip, rendering
Fujitsu disk drive products inoperable.
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The controller chips of the failed Fujitsu hard drives were supplied by Cirrus Logic Inc, afabless semiconductor company in the U.S., which outsourced IC packaging to a Korean
packaging company Amkor Technology. The faulty encapsulation resins manufactured by
Sumitomo Bakelite caused failures in Fujitsu devices through two intervening
semiconductor companies. The semiconductor industry’s trend toward outsourcing
resulted in the unusually high failure rates in products.
The failures due to faulty encapsulation resins started to surface in the summer of 2000
with Fujitsu hard disk drives. Products of other equipment and IC manufacturers followed
Fujitsu drives, and many problems of the same type were reported in 2001. By May 2002,
this mass chip failure had already become a huge issue in the U.S. According to theresearch conducted by the Computer Aided Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) Electronic
Products and Systems Center (an entity in the University of Maryland whose researches
are driven by more than 50 industrial partners in electronics, aviation, automotive,
semiconductor, computer and telecommunication who make up the CALCE Consortium),
failures occurred in devices within 6 to 12 month of operation, and the failure rate wassignificantly higher than normal, making up almost 1% of the production volume.
Originally the issue was thought to be affecting only hard disk drives, but similar defects
have begun appearing in a range of other equipment including cable set-top boxes,
computer mainboards, IC test systems and industrial machinery. While equipment and IC
manufacturers negotiate with Sumitomo Bakelite over possible resolutions, someincluding Cirrus Logic filed third party claims against Amkor Technology as being thecompany that recommended and sold them the goods that allegedly failed, Amkor in turnhave made a claim against Sumitomo Bakelite, the company that sold the alleged defective
goods to Amkor.
Advantest Corp of Japan, a semiconductor testing device manufacturer, experienced
problems very similar to Fujitsu’s hard disk drive troubles in its analog IC test systems.
Since the fall of 2000, Advantest started using semiconductor materials supplied by a U.S.
IC company to manufacture its new model of IC test systems. The systems started failingat an unusually high rate, almost 1% of the production volume (150 times the normal rate)
in 2001 during hot and humid summer days. The analysis pointed out defective
epoxy-molding compound and Advantest received compensation from the semiconductor
company.
The primary cause of the IC failures in both Fujitsu and Advantest products was the
EME-U series of red phosphorus containing epoxy-molding compounds manufactured by
Sumitomo Bakelite who has the largest market share in the world in the IC encapsulating
materials. The catch was using inorganic phosphorus in place for the conventional
material that produced toxic gas when combusted would better preserve the environment.
The test by Advantest, however, showed that the poor quality of the inorganic phosphorus
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led to the troubles under high temperature and high humidity.
Sumitomo Bakelite completed development of the EME-U series of resins in 1995, andinitiated their sample shipping and mass production in June 1996. After receiving
complaints from customers in May/June 2001 that the EME-U series resins were causing
numbers of IC failures, Sumitomo Bakelite opened a support center in June and informed
its customers in August 2001 that it would discontinue the EME-U series of resins. The
scheduled end of the EME-U series production in November, within 3 months after the
notification to customers, was postponed to July 2002 due to persistent demand amongcustomers for the EME-U series of resins. The total shipment of the EME-U series to 13
customers worldwide reached approximately 1,000 tons by July 2002 when its production
was halted. Note that this shipped volume only accounts for less than 1% of the total
production volume.
While equipment and IC manufacturers reported unusually high failure rate in theirproducts that contain chips using the EME-U series of resins, Sumitomo Bakelite’s
pre-shipment inspections gave a defect rate of several 10s of ppm from a sample of about
1,000 tons. Sumitomo Bakelite did not deny that the resin caused spread ofencapsulation-related problems to various types of equipment and ICs; however, it
admitted no liability, claiming that no through investigation had been conducted to ruleout all of other possible causes. Sumitomo Bakelite claims that the customers’ specification
for product delivery had only 7-pages describing generic reliability tests, physical andchemical characteristics of the resin. No description was found about the conditions of use.
Sumitomo Bakelite denied the allegations against it for rampant failures in equipment
and ICs, claiming that encapsulation-related problems occurred in products of only limited
numbers of Sumitomo Bakelite customers, and the cause of device and chip failures was
not only the EME-U series of resins but also other numerous factors combined.
Setting the conflict between companies aside, consumer’s concerns would be whether
similar malfunctions would spread to other electronic products. The entire volume of
shipments from the start to the end of sales of this sealant is said to be 1,000 tons, and it isless than 1% of all sealant that Sumitomo Bakelite had shipped during the same period. Dr.
Hillman from CALCE, however, warns that the machinery equipped with thesemiconductor with this sealant cover a wide range from the armed forces tocommunications and the aviation industry, that there are probably companies which havenot tested their products and have not noticed the problem, and that the influence may
possibly spread in the future.
3. Cause(1) Direct Cause of malfunction (technical cause)
The cause was a short circuit between pins by migration (cf. note) of Ag that was a
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Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

material of the pins in the LSI package. The sealant of the LSI that had caused the
malfunction was "EME-U" made by Sumitomo Bakelite who had the top share in the
global market, and EME-U was a sealant, which used inorganic phosphorus instead of theconventional material that generated strong toxic gas when combusted. Red phosphorus,
chemically stable compared to other allotropes, was used as the flame retardant, andmoreover it was coated by Al(OH)3 to prevent chemical reaction of the phosphorus. Poor
quality of the red phosphorus or the coating in this case produced phosphoric acid from areaction with water in the package under high temperatures and humidity. The
phosphoric acid, water, and electric field induced by electric current through the pins,
dissolved the pin material Ag that then migrated to other pins (Figure 1). As a result, thepins were short-circuited.
Note) Migration
The phenomenon that metal or compound deposit is produced by metal ions moving fromone metal electrode to the other when the voltage is supplied to the PCB under highhumidity.

Figure 1 Mechanism of unexpected short circuit between pins
(2) Indirect Cause of Malfunction (Organizational/Social Cause)
Outsourcing of IC manufacturing processes made it difficult to identify the liable party
for product failures.
(As a result, LSIs were placed in the machines without verifying their reliability.)
The semiconductor industry recognizes outsourcing as a cost-effective solution, and many
IC manufacturers routinely employ outsourcing technologies and supply chain models.
This trend worked the other way this time and made it difficult to isolate the contributing
factors, which then caused the wide spread of IC failures across the industry. Device
quality or product reliability issues commonly occur in outsourcing to the third-party
silicon foundries, fabless, IC packaging and assembly firms due to their lack of standards
4Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Casesor technological weakness, which are rarely observed among integrated device
manufacturers (IDMs).
The packaging industry and fables manufacturers, actively pursuing outsourcing, pushed the use ofphosphorus e ncapsulating material. Th e Jap anese ID Ms had e valuated p hosphorus-based fl ame
retardants; however, the ir reactive characteristics in the presence of humidity and past e xperiencesin m etal migration iss ues fou nd i n ph osphorus sili cate glass (PSG ) film turned many aw ay from
implementing them in their products. Fabless, IC packaging and assembly firms originated so IDMs
can outsource part of t heir work, sp ecifically LSI des ign, w afer pr ocessing a nd packaging. I n t he
beginning of suc h tre nd, IDMs were stil l resp onsible for overall ch ip reli ability, h owever, as
outsourcing progressed, s ubcontractors t urned c apable of building chips t hemselves w ithout t he
IDMs. Then t he packaging companies or fables would then be liable for the testing and warranty.
These companies, which used to take responsibility for single processes, lacked the technology andexperience f or the re liability of the over all performance of chips. I DMs used to be l iable for t heoverall reli ability, ho wever, ou tsourcing sp read ou t no t j ust the p rocessing bu t al so the
responsibilities as w ell (Figure2). Material s uppliers, pa ckaging c ompanies, semiconductor

manufacturers, or t he end prod uct m anufacturer only hav e t he information a bout t heir o wnprocesses a nd t he quality c hain is broken. At t he e nd, t he r esponsibility for the overall re liability
was dispersed.

Figure 2. Difference between Conventional Model and Horizontal Division of Labor
4. Immediate Action(1) Device manufacturers and IC manufacturers checked their products and stopped the use of5

Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

epoxy-molding compounds containing red phosphorus.
(2) After receiving complaints from customers in May/June 2001 that the EME-U series resins werecausing numbers of IC failures, Sumitomo Bakelite opened a support center in June and started its
own investigation on the cause of failures.
In August 2001, a manufacturer announced its decision to discontinue the use of red phosphorus in
the epoxy sealant.
Sumitomo Bakelite informed its customers on its decision to discontinue the use of this resin toswitch to an alternative flame retardant to red phosphorus. The new flame retardant system wasfully implemented by the end of July 2002.
5. Countermeasure(1) Do not use the sealant containing phosphorus (P) in packages.
(2) Develop reliability chains involving material suppliers, IC packaging and assembly firms,
semiconductor manufacturers and the end product manufacturers.
(3) Actions were taken to prevent recurrence of failures and ensure reliability ofcomponents in complicated IC manufacturing outsourcing.
・ Intervention of third-party auditors
Certified third-party auditors were introduced to outsourcing of IC manufacturing(Figure 3a). They test reliability of material systems and ICs to ensure that they
are properly qualified for lifetime requirements of the device manufacturers.
・ LSI vendors with the sole mission of assuring reliability
LSI manufacturers with advanced technology in reliability and quality (Figure 3b),will take full responsibility about the overall reliability of chips.

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Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

Figure 3. Reliability Assurance in Outsourcing
6. Summary
The encapsulation-related problem found in Fujitsu hard disk drives exerted alarge-scale influence on the high-reliability electronics industry. Similar problems withpackage encapsulation resins may surface across industries. The incident force theindustries to recognize the importance of components’ reliability, while it revealed theshortcomings of outsourcing. The Fujitsu device failures were caused by reformulation of
the epoxy mould compound containing red phosphorus used in the ICs. The cause being
one of the material led to propagating the issue to the entire electronic device industry.
The reliability of one of the base parts, LSI, has started to shake. The trend towards
outsourcing is blurring where the responsibility lies about reliability, and accelerated
technology for finer processes is leaving the evaluation and analysis parts behind.
Before outsourcing was popular, computer manufacturers developed ICs and components
for their products. They also purchased materials from established materials
manufacturers, to whom they provided detailed specifications on their final products. The
outsourcing trend has now broken the chain of quality. Quality and reliability of the final
products became difficult to maintain as production process is divided among numbers ofspecialized firms. It is critical for the industry to establish the quality and reliability chain
which can be implemented by all firms involved in device manufacturing, including
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Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

material manufacturers, IC packaging and assembly firms, semiconductor manufacturers
and the device manufacturer.
Intervention of certified third-party auditors will help assuring components’ complianceto such industry standards.
This incident was a wakeup call to remind the industry that managing manufacturingcosts is not all that matters and manufacturers must rethink their supply chain models
and technologies on the basis of products’ reliability.
7.

Knowledge(1) Metal migrate by phosphorus (P), water and electric field.
(2) Scrupulous attention is necessary to employ phosphorus (P) in an LSI package.
(3) Reliability of a semiconductor product deteriorates due to outsourcing processes in thesemiconductor industry.
(4) Chain of quality and reliability and their implementation are required in all firms
involved in device manufacturing, including material manufacturers, IC packaging
and assembly firms, semiconductor manufacturers and the device manufacturer.
(5) Intervention of certified third-party auditors is effective to ensure components’compliance to prevailing industry standards, which ultimately ensure reliability of
the final products.

8. BackgroundA decline in reliability resulted from less awareness and poor technical capability forreliability of the whole LSI industry. In addition, since low cost, shorter productdevelopment cycle, or shipment have given priorities due to the greater competition among
LSI manufacturers, they are short in the budget to invest in reliability or quality control to
add such staff as reliability engineers for quality control. Reliability, including the numberof failure analysis engineers, within each LSI company is decreasing and those engineers
are aging. This causes a decline in the reliability while its evaluation turns more difficult
due to the accelerated miniaturization of LSIs. Insufficient time to evaluate reliability andthe outdated evaluation technology are blamed for the decline of reliability of LSIs. Efforts
to shorten the evaluation time have led to relying on simulation results of other devices
similar the one that should be tested. There are cases where such data would not matchand such corner-cutting would cause failures. The evaluation technology has lagged far
behind the accelerated miniaturization.
In addition, in the LSI industry, supply chains in the electronics industry complexly
divided into outsourcing among sealant manufacturers, packaging manufacturers, LSI
manufacturers, HDD manufacturers, and PC manufacturers. The problematic package
8Failure Knowledge Database / 100 Selected Cases

sealant material was shipped in a total of 1,000 tons, which can roughly count to 1 billion
LSIs. LSIs for HDD are only one small part, and failure cases has also been reported in
LSIs for set top boxes for cable television, LSIs mounted on PC main boards, or IC inside
LSI testers. There is a risk that the problem will further spread to other electronic
products in the future.
<References>[1]

LSI “A Reliability Crisis”: Nikkei Micro Device, November 2002, pp64-71[2]“Fujitsu HDD defect, flow in the material manufactured by Sumitomo Bakelite”:
Nikkei Business, September 30, 2002, pp6-7 JiryuChoryu[3]

A short circuit between pins occurs frequently in a LSI package, complaint continued,
a lawsuit case”: Nikkei Micro Device, September 2002

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