1 shows one of the bonding pads after having made a series of eight nanoindentations. The scrub mark is also clearly visible. Vickers hardness of bonding pads from four different manufacturers. The Vickers hardness of each bonding pad type is tabulated in Fig. 2, each value being averaged from several measurements. It can be seen that type A has the highest hardness and can therefore be considered as being good , whereas types B and C have much lower hardness and so are considered as bad .
Type D has an intermediate hardness value.
The NHT is a powerful analytical tool which is ideally suited to industrial quality control applications where short measurement times and automated operation are particularly important. In the case of IC bonding pads it has been shown that such a method is easily able to distinguish between different pad hardness and thus allow the choice of manufacturer to be made at an early stage in the development phase. Localized measurements at specific sites make this instrument an attractive solution to many other IC and other related industrial problems. However, the instrument is also of great benefit in a smaller scale research environment for the development of better materials and processes. SEM micrograph showing the sputtered Aluminum grain structure and the ability of the NHT to make a highly localized indentation within a specified grain.