Patent Document

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This is a Division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/471,163, filed May 22, 2009, entitled AIRGAP MICRO-SPRING INTERCONNECT WITH BONDED UNDERFILL SEAL, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     Micro-spring packages generally involve an integrated circuit arranged on a substrate where the integrated circuit has contact pads, referred to here as the pad chip. Another circuit package having protruding contact springs, referred to here as the spring chip, is aligned with the pad chip such that the springs contact the pads. An adhesive holds the springs in contact with the pads. 
     The process typically includes dispensing an uncured adhesive onto the pads prior to being brought into contact with the springs. Once the springs contact the pads, the adhesive is cured, converting it into a robust, solid mold. Curing may include exposing the adhesive to UV light. An example of such a process is given in U.S. Pat. No. 6,213,789, “Method and Apparatus for Interconnecting Devices Using an Adhesive,” issued Apr. 10, 2001. 
     However, this approach does not scale well for packages having thousands of spring interconnects contacting large sized pads. The contacts fail when subjected to even mild thermal soaks. One issue that arises from the size of the pads. Generally, UV curing involves exposing the adhesive to UV light from underneath the pad. The larger pads block the light, resulting in partially cured adhesive. When the partially cured adhesive heats up in a thermal soak, it can migrate into the contact area, causing the contacts to fail. This thermally-induced effect means using thermally set adhesives instead of UV-cured adhesives would also result in similar contact failures. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIGS. 1-4  show a current process for manufacture of a spring interconnect and the resulting interconnect. 
         FIG. 5  shows an embodiment of an air gap micro-spring interconnect. 
         FIG. 6  shows an embodiment of an air gap micro-spring interconnect having a sealed off interconnect area and underfill. 
         FIG. 7  shows an embodiment of a walled-off interconnect area prior to underfill. 
         FIG. 8  shows an embodiment of an air gap micro-spring interconnect package prior to underfill. 
         FIG. 9  shows a top view of an air gap micro-spring interconnect package after application of underfill. 
         FIG. 10  shows a side views of an alternative micro-spring interconnect package after application of underfill. 
         FIG. 11  shows a top view of an alternative micro-spring interconnect package after application of underfill. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS 
       FIGS. 1-4  show an embodiment of a current process for manufacture of a spring interconnect package.  FIG. 1  shows a ‘pad chip’  10  having at least one contact pad  12 . The pad chip generally consists of a substrate  10 , which may be glass, ceramic, semiconductor, or a flexible organic substrate, as examples. The contact pad may reside on a device, not shown, or directly on the substrate. 
       FIG. 2  shows the pad chip being prepared for packaging with a spring chip. This generally involves dispensing an adhesive or other type of mold compound  16  over the pad chip. When the spring chip is mated to the pad chip, this compound is cured and creates a solid and robust mold around the interconnect. The contact between the contact pad and the spring will be referred to as the interconnect, and the area in which multiple interconnects are made between the two chips will be referred to as the interconnect area. At least one of the pad chip and the spring chip may contain electronic devices, the term electronic devices including photo-electronic devices (photonic devices). These may include transistors, photodetectors, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and laser diodes. 
     In an embodiment, the springs on the spring chip are batch-fabricated using stress-engineered thin films. The films are sputter-deposited with a built-in stress gradient so that, when patterned and released from their substrate, they curl out of the wafer plane with a designed radius of curvature. Stress engineering is accomplished by controlling the ambient pressure during film deposition. Many refractory metals have a common property of acquiring tensile stress when sputtered at high pressures and compressive stress when sputtered at low pressures. One such metal is, for example, a molybdenum-chromium (MoCr) alloy. The exact stress-versus-pressure behavior is a function of the specific sputter tool geometry, the type of substrate used, and other process parameters. In one sputter setup, MoCr films sputtered below pressures of 2.35 mTorr produce compressive films, while those sputtered at higher deposition pressures produce tensile films. The effect allows one to readily and reproducibly dial in a stress values ranging from −2 GPa to +2 GPa just by changing the sputter pressure. 
     A stress gradient is induced by simply changing the ambient pressure during film deposition. A film that is compressive at the bottom and tensile on the surface is, for example, realized by increasing the pressure during sputtering. In practice, this pressure control is accomplished by flowing Argon and widening or narrowing an orifice opening to the pump. When patterned and released, such a stress-graded film curls up out of the wafer plane to form springs. Once released from the substrate the springs can be coated or plated to adjust its electrical and physical properties. 
     Once the two chips are aligned, they are brought into contact, as shown in  FIG. 3 . The molding compound or adhesive  16  seals the package from the environment, as well as protecting the interconnect between the spring  20  and the contact pad  12 . At this point, the molding compound  16  is still pliable, allowing the spring  20  to penetrate and make connection with the contact pad  12 . In this embodiment, the molding compound cures upon exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light, shown by arrows such as  22 . 
     In this embodiment, the substrate  10  upon which the pad  12  resides is glass or other transparent material. However the pad  12  blocks the UV light from curing part of the molding compound  16 . This may also be true if the pad  12  resides on a device, where the device would also block the curing light.  FIG. 4  shows the region  24  that consists of insufficiently cured adhesive. The adhesive is insufficiently cured in that when exposed to heat during thermal cycling of the device&#39;s operation, some of the adhesive may migrate into the area of the interconnection and cause the interconnection to fail. Use of thermally set adhesives or molding compounds would not alleviate this problem, as the application of heat to set the adhesive would generally cause relative movements that result in migration of insulating materials into the interconnection. 
     Experiments have found that the package disclosed above does not scale to packages containing thousand of spring interconnects contacting large size pads. Electrical contacts for these packages tend to fail subjected to even mild thermal soaks. The below table lists electrical resistances of different daisy chain interconnects after a thermal soak at 90° C. after 65 hours. Many daisy chain interconnects developed contact failures. It should be noted that no further contact failures occurred after the initial set of failures. Good contacts remained good when subjected to further thermal cycling or humidity soaks. 
     
       
         
               
               
               
               
               
             
               
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                   
               
               
                 Daisy 
                 Number 
                 After package 
                 After 90° C. 
                 After 24 100° C./0° C. 
               
               
                 Chain 
                 of 
                 assembly 
                 soak for 65 hours 
                 thermal cycles 
               
               
                 ID 
                 Contacts 
                 ohms/contact 
                 ohms/contact 
                 ohms/contact 
               
               
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
               
             
          
           
               
                 1 
                 2 
                 3.11 
                 Open 
                 open 
               
               
                 2 
                 2 
                 1.77 
                 1.70 
                 1.72 
               
               
                 3 
                 2 
                 1.79 
                 1.80 
                 1.85 
               
               
                 4 
                 2 
                 3.31 
                 3.27 
                 3.28 
               
               
                 5 
                 2 
                 5.04 
                 4.92 
                 4.92 
               
               
                 6 
                 2 
                 4.39 
                 4.30 
                 4.31 
               
               
                 7 
                 2 
                 4.51 
                 4.43 
                 4.44 
               
               
                 8 
                 2 
                 5.15 
                 5.07 
                 5.11 
               
               
                 9 
                 8 
                 1.21 
                 1.27 
                 open 
               
               
                 10 
                 8 
                 1.22 
                 1.21 
                 1.25 
               
               
                 11 
                 28 
                 0.21 
                 0.26 
                 0.30 
               
               
                 12 
                 28 
                 0.22 
                 0.22 
                 0.22 
               
               
                 13 
                 42 
                 0.40 
                 Open 
                 open 
               
               
                 14 
                 42 
                 0.40 
                 0.46 
                 0.73 
               
               
                 15 
                 134 
                 0.32 
                 Open 
                 open 
               
               
                 16 
                 134 
                 0.33 
                 0.32 
                 0.33 
               
               
                 17 
                 246 
                 0.35 
                 Open 
                 open 
               
               
                 18 
                 246 
                 0.35 
                 Open 
                 open 
               
               
                 19 
                 384 
                 0.31 
                 Open 
                 open 
               
               
                 20 
                 530 
                 0.30 
                 Open 
                 open 
               
               
                 21 
                 530 
                 0.31 
                 0.31 
                 0.34 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     The first column in table 1 lists the identification number of each daisy chain in the package. The second column lists the number of interconnects contained within each daisy chain. The third column lists the normalized resistance measured for each chain after package assembly but before any reliability stress test. The fourth column indicates the effect of placing the package in a 90° C. oven for 65 hours. Seven daisy chains suffered contact failures after this thermal soak. Chains containing more interconnects were more prone to failures because even a single contact failure would produce an open circuit. Column 5 shows what happened when the package was subjected to subsequent thermal cycling. It appeared that the initial thermal soak stabilized the package, so no further contact failures occurred during the more aggressive thermal cycling.
         Experiments indicate that the contact failures in Table 1 are likely caused by insufficiently cured adhesive creeping between the spring/pad interface during the thermal soak.  FIG. 3  shows the adhesive curing process in a package that contains large-size contact pads. In this case, the adhesive is cured by illuminating the adhesive with ultra-violet light through a transparent glass wafer. The large contact pad  12  obscures a significant portion of ultraviolet light from reaching the critical spring/pad interface as shown in  FIG. 3 , so adhesive around that region  24  remains uncured, shown in  FIG. 4 .       

     When the package is subjected to thermal stress, uncured adhesive can migrate into the spring/pad interface causing contact failures. Since elevated temperatures also cure the adhesive, packages that have undergone thermal soak will no longer contain uncured adhesive. This thermal curing of adhesive explains the data in the table showing that interconnects that survive the initial thermal soak remain good when subjected to subsequent thermal cycling. The experiment also suggested that using temperature to do a primary adhesive cure is not a good option for forming the mold because the thermal soak process causes contact failures. 
       FIG. 5  shows an embodiment of a spring interconnect package that does not suffer from the issues discussed above. In  FIG. 5 , the spring chip  18  and the pad chip  10  are brought into alignment without covering the contact pad  12  with adhesive or molding compound. Instead, adhesive  26  is selectively applied at small, localized areas such as at the corners, center or edges of the package. The spring contact area has an air gap  28 . This localized placement and the smaller amount avoid the interference with the spring contact area discussed above. 
     However, the localized placement of adhesive leaves behind large open gaps, which exposes the interconnect area to the environment. In some interconnect designs, the contact area is placed sufficiently far from the wafer boundary. Adhesive may be applied around the entire periphery surrounding the interconnect area without adhesive creeping into it. Advantages exist in sealing off the interconnect area by surrounding it with adhesive underfill during package alignment and assembly in protecting the interconnect area from the environment. 
     For interconnect designs where applying adhesive around the entire periphery is problematic, one can apply adhesive at only select spot locations.  FIG. 6  shows an example of a package  30 , in which adhesive  32  is applied at the 4 corners of the package. The corners are merely examples of localized areas away from the interconnect area  34  in which adhesive may be applied. The adhesive may reside in many places as long as it does not encroach into the interconnect area  34  during package assembly. 
     Once the package is assembled and the adhesive cured, an underfill material  35  may be applied along the edges of the package. Generally, the underfill will flow into the gap between the two chips by capillary action, at least partially filling the gap and sealing the interconnect area from the environment. The underfill may be an adhesive like the adhesive used during assembly, so the first adhesive may be referred to here as the assembly material and the underfill adhesive may be referred to as underfill. Examples of the assembly material may include various Loctite™ product lines or various curable adhesives, such as thermally-curable, UV-curable, moisture-curable or chemically-curable adhesives. 
     In order to block the underfill from flowing into the interconnect area, a wall  36  may reside around the interconnect area to keep the underfill from flowing into the interconnect area. The underfill would then be cured to turn it into a solid, with no further issues with flow. The wall may consist of photolithographically defined features out of some sort of material such as polyimide. In one embodiment, the polyimide wall may also act as the assembly adhesive, provided the top of the wall is sufficiently tacky to stick to and hold the spring chip. In addition to functioning as a barrier against underfill encroachment, the wall may also define the gap thickness between to the two chips. 
       FIG. 7  shows a top view of an embodiment of a pad chip having a border wall surrounding the contact pads in the interconnect area. During assembly, the spring chip is pressed against the wall  36  such that the springs press against the corresponding contact pads such as  12 . In one embodiment, the spring chip and the pad chip are pressed against each other to a force of about twice as much as the force that would have been produced by the spring alone, approximately 1.2 Kg of force. Once aligned and pressed, the assembly adhesive is then cured, such as by application of UV light. The result is an air gap package consisting of a fence that allows subsequently applied underfill to completely surround the interconnect area without encroaching into any spring-contact pads. 
     Note that the wall traverses the interconnect lines, such as  38 . The interconnect lines such as  38  electrically connect the contact pads such as  12  inside the interconnect area  34  to test pads at the periphery of the package. The wall may be fully cured during pad chip processing. Some benefits may exist by only partially curing the wall, allowing for increased compliance and conformity to different surface topologies. This compliance may also enable a better seal when compressed during package assembly, as the wall fills any voids in the gap during assembly. 
       FIG. 8  shows a cross section of a package prior to application of the underfill. The wall  36  ensures that the air gap  28  in the interconnect area remains unencroached by any adhesive  26 . This ensures that the contact between the contact pad  12  on pad chip  10  and the spring  20  on spring chip  18  is not compromised by any other materials. The underfill would fill the space between the adhesive  26  and the wall  36 . When cured, the underfill converts the liquid to a solid mold, not only sealing off the interconnect area from the environment, but makes the package mechanically robust. 
       FIG. 9  shows a top down view of an embodiment of a package during application of the underfill. The wall  36  defines and protects the interconnect area  34 . The underfill in this embodiment is applied by application of a bead  40  of the underfill. Due to capillary action, the underfill material flows into the gap as shown by portion  42 . This flowing stops at the wall  36  and the underfill is then hardened to avoid any further flow. 
     In experiments, electrical contacts in the embodiments of this package survived thermal cycling and humidity reliability tests. In one experiment, the packages were placed in a chamber that cycles the temperature between 100° C. and 0° C. on 40 minute duty cycles. The humidity tests consisted of placing the packages into an 85% relative humidity environment at an elevated temperatures of 85° C. No failures were observed after 2 weeks of testing. 
     Some packages were also continuously monitored for electrical glitches while being thermal cycled. A single contact failure among the 2844 springs in the package would have caused a test failure. No glitches were detected after 140 hours of thermal cycling. The table below shows the pre and post thermal cycling daisy chain resistances of a package after 141 hours of thermal cycling. 
     
       
         
               
               
               
               
             
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                   
               
               
                   
                   
                 After package 
                 After thermal cycle 
               
               
                   
                 Number of 
                 assembly 
                 for 141 hours 
               
               
                 Daisy Chain ID 
                 Contacts 
                 ohms/contact 
                 ohms/contact 
               
               
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
               
             
          
           
               
                 1 
                 2 
                 0.09 
                 0.12 
               
               
                 2 
                 2 
                 0.12 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 3 
                 2 
                 0.10 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 4 
                 2 
                 0.10 
                 0.15 
               
               
                 5 
                 2 
                 0.12 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 6 
                 2 
                 0.13 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 7 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.14 
               
               
                 8 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 9 
                 2 
                 0.10 
                 0.12 
               
               
                 10 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.15 
               
               
                 11 
                 134 
                 0.74 
                 0.75 
               
               
                 12 
                 134 
                 0.74 
                 0.75 
               
               
                 13 
                 246 
                 0.80 
                 0.84 
               
               
                 14 
                 246 
                 0.79 
                 0.84 
               
               
                 15 
                 384 
                 0.67 
                 0.78 
               
               
                 16 
                 384 
                 0.67 
                 0.79 
               
               
                 17 
                 530 
                 0.75 
                 0.78 
               
               
                 18 
                 530 
                 0.75 
                 0.77 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     The table below shows the daisy chain resistances of a different package than that shown above, after 88 hours of humidity testing. 
     
       
         
               
               
               
               
             
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                   
               
               
                   
                   
                 After package 
                 After 85° C. 85% RH 
               
               
                   
                 Number of 
                 assembly 
                 soak for 88 hours 
               
               
                 Daisy Chain ID 
                 Contacts 
                 ohms/contact 
                 ohms/contact 
               
               
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
               
             
          
           
               
                 1 
                 2 
                 0.12 
                 0.12 
               
               
                 2 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.12 
               
               
                 3 
                 2 
                 0.09 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 4 
                 2 
                 0.09 
                 0.18 
               
               
                 5 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.16 
               
               
                 6 
                 2 
                 0.12 
                 0.17 
               
               
                 7 
                 2 
                 0.13 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 8 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.13 
               
               
                 9 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.15 
               
               
                 10 
                 2 
                 0.11 
                 0.21 
               
               
                 11 
                 134 
                 0.78 
                 0.81 
               
               
                 12 
                 134 
                 0.79 
                 0.83 
               
               
                 13 
                 246 
                 0.83 
                 0.89 
               
               
                 14 
                 246 
                 0.84 
                 0.90 
               
               
                 15 
                 384 
                 0.63 
                 0.79 
               
               
                 16 
                 384 
                 0.65 
                 0.83 
               
               
                 17 
                 530 
                 0.79 
                 0.82 
               
               
                 18 
                 530 
                 0.81 
                 0.88 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     Various modifications to this package are also possible, with much the same predicted results. For example, the substrates of either the spring chip, the pad chip, or both, may be glass, silicon, quartz, ceramic, flexible organic substrates, or other semiconductors such as GaAs or InP. Other types of assembly adhesives, other than UV-curable, may also be used, including self-curing, moisture-activated or thermally-curable. The underfill could also be self-curing, moisture-activated, thermally-curable or chemically-activated or -curable materials. 
     Another modification may lie in the wall structure defining the gap. Other types of spacers may be incorporated into the package. This may result from the wall structure not being sturdy enough to function effectively as spacers, or a desire to use a shorter wall, for example.  FIG. 10  shows an embodiment employing spacer beads to define the gap. The spacer beads  46  may be placed in alignment pits  48  etched into the pad chip and the spring chip. The beads may be placed at the corners, edges or in the center of the chips. A wall structure  36  would still be employed to stop the underfill from going into the interconnect area. The spacer beads may also be mixed into the assembly adhesive prior to the application of the adhesive. This is shown by the beads  46  mixed with the adhesive  26  in  FIG. 11 . 
     Much of the discussion above assumed the presence of a surrounding wall. Depending upon the viscosity of the underfill and how it is applied, no surrounding wall may be necessary. If the underfill is applied so as to not risk encroaching the interconnect area, the wall may be optional. Another alternative is to form several small ‘fences’ in designated locations, rather than as a surrounding wall. 
     In this manner, a more robust package is created with higher reliability for larger contact pads and high numbers of spring contacts. The package is sealed from the environment by the underfill, and the interconnect area is protected from any contaminating materials. 
     It will be appreciated that several of the above-disclosed and other features and functions, or alternatives thereof, may be desirably combined into many other different systems or applications. Also that various presently unforeseen or unanticipated alternatives, modifications, variations, or improvements therein may be subsequently made by those skilled in the art which are also intended to be encompassed by the following claims.

Technology Category: 5