Semiconductor Final Test Fixture Design with Microstructure Alloy Contacts using Finite Element Analysis

Z.Y. Lam, H.W. Koay and N. Amin Department of Electrical, Electronic & System Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment National University of Malaysia UKM, Bangi, Selangor 43600, Malaysia Email: ansonlam@eng.ukm.my; nowshad@eng.ukm.my

Abstract In this paper, a novel electrical contact mechanism that serves as a low insertion-force test socket is investigated by Finite Element Analysis. The proposed electrical contact mechanism is made up of three different materials such as polymer, metallic alloy and liquid metal. Due to the uneven stress distribution of the conventional pogo pin systems, large puncture marks occur on the integrated circuit contacts. The proposed design enhances the overall stress distribution performance of the electrical contact with integrated circuit as found from the analysis. Parameters such as the number of microstructure contacts and the pitch size among them give influential impact on the overall stress distribution performance. Generally, the more the microstructure contact, the more the stress distribution gets evenness. However, the stress distribution becomes saturated when the number of microstructure contacts reaches 16 for a total area of 0.25 mm x 0.25 mm. The pitch size of 0.07 mm gives the best performance for the given total contact area. Any pitch above will set the microstructure contacts to the edges of the contact area, which decreases the stress distribution performance. A factor of safety analysis is performed for the proposed design and a value of 4.9 is achieved, which is almost 5 times greater than the minimum requirement of 1.0. Introduction QFP is highly favorable package alternative for higher I/O devices in IC industries. Its main advantage over other high lead-count packages is mainly its maturity in manufacturing process, which directly reduces the manufacturing complexity and lowers the manufacturing cost. Other advantage includes ease in PCB troubleshooting, as QFP leads are exposed and can easily be de-solder for failure inspection. Yet, it is not perfect either as its lead can be bent or damaged with puncture marks if it is exposed to excessive drive force during semiconductor final testing. [1-2] Integrated Circuits (IC) usually go through many tests with various parameters before ship out from the manufacturing side. One of the most important tests is called final test, which ensures the performance and quality of the products. This process usually marks up a large portion of production cost, as the manufacturer will face a large amount of loss when the ICs are proven faulty after the packaging processes. This test is usually performed after the IC die is in the package, where it requires a test socket to provide a separable electrical conductive interface between the IC package or Device Under Test (DUT) and a printed circuit board (Loadboard) that is designed to test the functions of the DUT. Available electrical conducting mechanisms within the test socket are S-shape 978-1-4244-5100-5/09/$26.00 2009 IEEE 1
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contacts (cantilever), spring-style (pogo pin), and Elastomers (metal filled polymers). [3-6] To ensure an accurate measurement of the DUT functionality results, the contact resistance is to be kept stable and lower. Although the practical contact resistance value mostly depends upon the actual application, however, it is recommended to maintain the resistivity as low as 20 m. [7] Problem Induced in Current Test Technologies Pogo pin type test socket has been adapted well in IC final testing so far. However, experts in IC testing are facing new technological concerns over the increasing difficulties on establishing a temporary connectivity to IC packages with decreasing footprint but increasing in pin-count and operating frequency. Variation in the magnitude and stability of the contact resistance is the result of the interfacial phenomena between the pogo pin crown tip and the oxide layer. [8] In order to maintain a stable and low contact resistance, it is necessary to increase the drive force to puncture through the IC package leads when the pogo pins become contaminated. Often, this excessive drive force creates large puncture marks on the IC package leads. They are increasing not only the risk of permanent pogo pin deformation but also degrading the reliability and performance of the IC package being tested. Therefore, it is necessary to determine an appropriate new contact mechanism or new electrical contact prototype in order to overcome the problem.

Fig. 1 Proposed novel electrical conductive mechanism with a number of electrical conductive cells. Therefore, a novel electrical contact mechanism has been proposed by utilizing a combination of three different kinds of materials: polymer, metallic alloy and liquid metal. This combination gives an electrical conductive cell, which eventually accumulates and builds up an entire electrical conductive interface for test socket. The arrangement of the 2009 11th Electronics Packaging Technology Conference

electrical conductive cells is based on the footprint of the IC package. Fig. 1 illustrates one of the electrical conductive cells being aligned to the IC footprint. Prototype testing of the proposed contact mechanism is done using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tools to investigate overall performance. The results of the FEA will show how the novel test fixture overcomes the excessive drive force during puncture action. It also gives better understanding on the factors that produce puncture marks and let engineers have an insight of the parameters that influences it.

each of the micro-contactor are 30 m and 0.1 mm, respectively. However, the thickness of the polymer and liquid metal under the metallic micro-contactor remains as a variable for proposed FEA parameter testing as to determine the minimum thickness that can support the whole system. There exists a correlation between the contact resistance and the contact force. Researchers observed that the contact resistance decreases as the contact force increases, but until some extent the resistance does not change. They named it contact development force, where the metal-to-metal contact is made through wiping away tin oxide. Generally, the contact development force for tin (Sn) or tin-lead (SnPb) contact is 0.1 N. [9] Therefore, the drive force for all the following FEA is set at 0.1 N. Results and Discussion 1) Pin Count of the Microstructure Contacts and associated Stress Distribution In general, pogo pins in the test socket are probed to each of the IC package leads surface in order to establish an electrical contact during final testing. The drive force of the puncture action depends on the contamination level of the pogo pin. Drive force has to be increased if the contamination level is high to maintain a low contact resistance. Puncture marks occur generally because of poor stress distribution on the mechanical contact surface. Table 1. Finite Element Analysis conditions. Parameter Material/Magnitude Metallic plate Sn Microstructure contacts Cu Force (N) per pin 0.1 Number of microstructure 1,2,4,9,16 and 25 pins contact pins Pitch (mm) 0.04, 0.05. 0.06. 0.07, 0.073 In this proposed prototype, the metallic conductive layer is made up of rod like microstructures. It is important to study the effectiveness of stress distribution of the microstructures to meet with the objective of eliminating the puncture marks. The FEA is setup as shown in Fig. 4, where a metallic plate represents the IC package lead, which is contacting the microstructure contacts right below. The FEA parameters used here are shown in Table 1. The graph, as shown in Fig. 5, shows the stress distribution in von Mises stress across the prototype structure. The von Mises stress is used to predict yield of materials under any loading condition as a result of the tensile test. If the von Mises stress exceeds the yield stress, then the material is considered to be at the failure mode. The formula for von Mises stress is given as: Von Mises stress =

Fig. 2 Schematic view of the individual conductive cell in the novel test fixture.

Fig. 3 Fine pitch QFP package with 0.5 mm pitch or less Finite Element Model As shown in Fig. 2, each of the electrical conductive cells is stacked up of metallic alloy layer, polymer layer and liquid metal. Metallic alloy layer is fabricated in the form of standing columns (metallic rods in micrometer size) to fulfill its purpose to break down the interfacial oxide layer on the DUT leads during contact. While the polymer layer is not only to hold the metallic alloy contacts in place to form the overall shape of the test fixture, it also houses the liquid metal. Liquid metal will serve as a flexible electrical connection and protective layer to the metallic alloy contacts. Unlike solid spring, liquid metal will change its shape during compression and will counter the minimum drive force back to the metallic alloy contact. In this finite element model, the dimension of the conductive cell is set according to the fine-pitch (0.5 mm pitch, as shown in Fig. 3) QFP IC package, which has a dimension of 0.25 mm x 0.25 mm. Diameter and length of 2
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((

2 ) 2 + (2 3 ) 2 + (3 1 ) 2 ) 2

(1)

2009 11th Electronics Packaging Technology Conference

Where, 1, 2, and 3 are the principle stresses acting in the x, y, and z directions. While the mean of the von Mises stress is given by the formula: Mean stress =

max + min
2

(2)

Where, max and min are the maximum and minimum von Mises stress, respectively.

be overlapped and superimposed. The microstructure contacts with pitch size of 0.0733 mm show slightly increase in mean stress mainly due to the fact that this is the maximum pitch can be set for the given contact area (0.25 mm x 0.25 mm), where all the outer most microstructure contacts will be located at the four edges of the contact area. Therefore, the stress finds no space to be distributed at the edge and therefore will be concentrated and adjacent stresses will be superimposed at the edge.

Fig. 4 FEA on von Mises Stress distribution in the proposed contact design. From Fig. 5, the results show clear correlation between the von Mises Stress and the total pin counts of microstructure contacts. As the pins count increases, the range of the von Mises stress experienced by the proposed prototype becomes smaller. Since the values of two extreme points of stresses (maximum and minimum stress) are getting closer, it implies that the stress difference across the prototype is getting smaller. This also means that the drive force is getting well distributed as the pin number increases. It can clearly be observed by graphical comparison of the stress allocation between 9-pin structure and 25-pin structure in Fig. 6. Fig. 6 (b) shows that 25-pin structure has the stress distributed all across the surface area, while Fig. 6 (a) shows that the stress will be concentrated more at the center. The graph from Fig. 5 also shows that the mean stress decreases sharply from 1 pin to 4-pin structure, but saturates when the number of pin becomes larger than 16. This proves that the stress distribution will not increase much if the pin count reaches to 16 pins. Moreover, more pins mean more material and more complexity of mask fabrication and related processes. Therefore, the proposed microstructure contacts are recommended to fix at 16 pins for a 0.25 mm x 0.25 mm footprint area. 2) Pitch between Adjacent Microstructure Contacts and Associated Stress Distribution It has also been found that the distance between the adjacent microstructure contacts in the proposed test fixture design influences on how well the stress be distributed across the contact area. The FEA result in Fig. 7 shows that the increase in pitch size from 0.04 mm to 0.07 mm will increase the structures ability to distribute the stress more evenly. This is mainly due to the increase in the room space between the adjacent microstructure contacts for compression. Therefore, the stresses from adjacent microstructure contacts would not 3
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Fig. 5 Von Mises stress and mean stress versus total pin count of the microstructure contacts.

(a)

(b) Fig. 6 Graphical comparison of stress distribution for (a) 9pin structure and (b) 25-pin structure. 3) Displacement Analysis of the Test Fixture The test fixture, which consists of microstructure contacts, polymer and liquid metal, has gone through FEA for displacement analysis as shown in Fig. 8. The result shows that the displacement is mostly concentrated at the polymer holding the microstructure contacts, while lower part of the polymer will be relaxed throughout the compression. It also demonstrates that the liquid metal within the polymer serves as a flexible electrical connection between the microstructure contact and the Loadboard, which also gives mechanical 2009 11th Electronics Packaging Technology Conference

support as its volume remains unchaged during compression. Factor of Safety (FoS) is the mechanical test indicator that tells if the mechanical design is capable to take the required maximum load, which also implies its reliability. A minimum requirement for FoS value for any given component or assembly is 1.0. The proposed prototype with 1 mm polymer thickness passed the test with FoS of 4.9, which is four times greater than the minimum requirement.

prototype can be recognized as the potential solution, which is also optimized with high level of confidence having a higher Factor of Safety (FoS) value, too. References 1. Lam, Z.Y., Amin, N., Ang, Y.C., Integrated Circuit Test Fixture Limitation Analysis from Experimental and Simulation Approach, Proc of 2008 Student Conference on Research and Development, Johor, 2008. 2. Amin, N., Lam, Z.Y., A Practical Investigation on The Root Causes of The Mechanical Damages of Pogo Pin Type Test Sockets to IC packages in Final Test, Proc International Conference on Semiconductor Electronics,Johor, 2008, pp. 393-397. 3. Qiao, Q., et al, Development of Wafer-Level Burn-In Test Socket For Fine-Pitch BGA Interconnect, Proc 50th Electronic Components and Technology Conf, May. 2000, pp. 1147-1151. 4. Chowdhury, S., et al, A MEMS Socket System for High Density SoC Interconnection, IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, Vol. 1 (2002), pp. 657-660. 5. Shih, D.Y., et al, New Ball Grid Array Module Test Sockets, Proc 46th Electronic Components and Technology Conf, 1996, pp. 467-470. 6. Chan, B. and Singh, P., BGA socket - a Dendritic Solution, Proc 46th Electronic Components and Technology Conf, May. 1996, pp. 460-466. 7. Marr, R.C., et al, Ball Grid Array Technology, McGrawHill Book Company Inc (USA, 1995), pp. 6-36. 8. Teng, H.C., et al, Study of Contact Degration in Final Testing for BGA Socket, Proc IEEE Electronic Materials and Packaging Conf, November. 2007, pp. 1-6. 9. Jang, C.S., et al, Failure Analysis of Contact Probe Pins for SnPb and Sn Applications, Microelectronics Reliability, Vol. 48 (2008), pp. 942-947.

Fig. 7 The Von Mises stress and mean stress versus the pitch size between two adjacent microstructure contacts.

Fig. 8 Displacement test for the proposed test fixture. Conclusion Uneven stress distribution has been one of the main factors of the induced puncture marks on the DUT contact leads. In this study, the influential factors of the stress distribution for the proposed novel test fixture prototype have been investigated using FEA tools. Parameters such as the number of microstructure contacts and the pitch size among them give influential impact on the overall stress distribution performance. The more the microstructure contacts, the more the stress distribution becomes uniform. However, the stress distribution becomes saturated as the number of microstructure contacts reaches the value of16 for a given area of 0.25 mm x 0.25 mm. The pitch size of 0.07 mm gives the best performance for the total contact area. From the results achieved with the FEA tools, the design parameters of the 4
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2009 11th Electronics Packaging Technology Conference