• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2020

As an interconnect scaling faces a technical bottleneck, the device stacking technologies have been developed for miniaturization, low cost and high performance. To manufacture a stacked device structure, a vertical interconnect becomes a key process to enable signal and power integrities. Most bonding materials used in stacked structures are currently solder or Cu pillar with Sn cap, but copper is emerging as the most important bonding material due to fine-pitch patternability and high electrical performance. Copper bonding has advantages such as CMOS compatible process, high electrical and thermal conductivities, and excellent mechanical integrity, but it has major disadvantages of high bonding temperature, quick oxidation, and planarization requirement. There are many copper bonding processes such as dielectric bonding, copper direct bonding, copper-oxide hybrid bonding, copper-polymer hybrid bonding, etc.. As copper bonding evolves, copper-oxide hybrid bonding is considered as the most promising bonding process for vertically stacked device structure. This paper reviews current research trends of copper bonding focusing on the key process of Cu-SiO₂ hybrid bonding.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.55-60
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• 2020

The recent semiconductor packaging technology is evolving into a high-performance system-in-packaging (SIP) structure, and copper-to-copper bonding process becomes an important core technology to realize SIP. Copper-to-copper bonding process faces challenges such as copper oxidation and high temperature and high pressure process conditions. In this study, the bonding interface quality of low-temperature copper-to-copper bonding using a two-step plasma treatment was investigated through quantitative bonding strength measurements. Our two-step plasma treatment formed copper nitride layer on copper surface which enables low-temperature copper bonding. The bonding strength was evaluated by the four-point bending test method and the shear test method, and the average bonding shear strength was 30.40 MPa, showing that the copper-to-copper bonding process using a two-step plasma process had excellent bonding strength.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.34-36
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• 2005

Copper wire bonding is an alternative interconnection technology that serves as a viable and cost saving alternative to gold wire bonding. In this paper, ultrasonic wedge bonding with $25{\mu}m$ copper wire on Au/Ni/Cu metallization of a PCB substrate was performed at ambient temperature. The central composite design of experiment (DOE) approach was applied to optimize the copper wire wedge bonding process parameters. After that, pull test of the wedge bond was performed to study the bond strength and to find the optimum bonding parameters. SEM was used to observe the cross section of the wedge bond. The pull test results show good performance of the wedge bond. Additionally, DOE results gave the optimized parameter for both the first bond and the second bond. Cross section analysis shows a continuous interconnection between the copper wire and Au/Ni/Cu metallization. The diffusion of Cu into the Au layer was also observed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2018.06a
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• pp.102-102
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• 2018

Electronic industry had required the finer size and the higher performance of the device. Therefore, 3-D die stacking technology such as TSV (through silicon via) and micro-bump had been used. Moreover, by the development of the 3-D die stacking technology, 3-D structure such as chip to chip (c2c) and chip to wafer (c2w) had become practicable. These technologies led to the appearance of HBM (high bandwidth memory). HBM was type of the memory, which is composed of several stacked layers of the memory chips. Each memory chips were connected by TSV and micro-bump. Thus, HBM had lower RC delay and higher performance of data processing than the conventional memory. Moreover, due to the development of the IT industry such as, AI (artificial intelligence), IOT (internet of things), and VR (virtual reality), the lower pitch size and the higher density were required to micro-electronics. Particularly, to obtain the fine pitch, some of the method such as copper pillar, nickel diffusion barrier, and tin-silver or tin-silver-copper based bump had been utillized. TCB (thermal compression bonding) and reflow process (thermal aging) were conventional method to bond between tin-silver or tin-silver-copper caps in the temperature range of 200 to 300 degrees. However, because of tin overflow which caused by higher operating temperature than melting point of Tin ($232^{\circ}C$), there would be the danger of bump bridge failure in fine-pitch bonding. Furthermore, regulating the phase of IMC (intermetallic compound) which was located between nickel diffusion barrier and bump, had a lot of problems. For example, an excess of kirkendall void which provides site of brittle fracture occurs at IMC layer after reflow process. The essential solution to reduce the difficulty of bump bonding process is copper to copper direct bonding below $300^{\circ}C$. In this study, in order to improve the problem of bump bonding process, copper to copper direct bonding was performed below $300^{\circ}C$. The driving force of bonding was the self-annealing properties of electrodeposited Cu with high defect density. The self-annealing property originated in high defect density and non-equilibrium grain boundaries at the triple junction. The electrodeposited Cu at high current density and low bath temperature was fabricated by electroplating on copper deposited silicon wafer. The copper-copper bonding experiments was conducted using thermal pressing machine. The condition of investigation such as thermal parameter and pressure parameter were varied to acquire proper bonded specimens. The bonded interface was characterized by SEM (scanning electron microscope) and OM (optical microscope). The density of grain boundary and defects were examined by TEM (transmission electron microscopy).

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.136-144
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• 1997

(Ag-10%Ni)/Cu clad metals for electric contact switch were fabricated by cold-roll bonding process. 2 or 3 passes of cold-rolling was carried out for each process to investigate the effect of the rolling passes on the bonding property. The effect of the annealing temperature of copper before the cold-roll bonding on the bond strength was also studied. The specimen bonded with copper annealed below 30$0^{\circ}C$ before roll bonding showed good bond strength. This is because high stored energy in copper promoted the short range diffusion and the grain refinement of copper by the static recrystallization increased the degree of the interfacial coherency. The maximum peel strength of clad metals bonded with Cu annealed below 30$0^{\circ}C$ was 120N.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.38 no.11
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• pp.1000-1007
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• 2001

In an evacuated tube solar collector, the stable sealing of the heat pipe to the glass tube is important for the collector to use for a long period of time. The sealing of copper tube to the glass is quite difficult because of the large differences in the physical and chemical properties of the two materials. In this study, therefore, a proper copper oxide layer was induced to improve the chemical bonding of the two materials, and the oxidation state of copper and the interface between copper and glass were examined by XRD, SEM and EDS. Its bonding strength was also measured. Cu$_2$O was formed when the bare copper was heat-treated under 600$^{\circ}C$, while CuO oxide layer was formed above that temperature. The bonding state of CuO to the copper was very poor. The borate treatment of the copper, however, extend the stable forming of Cu$_2$O layer to 800$^{\circ}C$. Borosilicate glass tube was sealed to a copper tube by Housekeeper method only when the sealing part was covered with Cu$_2$O layer. The bonding strength at the interface was measured 354.4N, its thermal shock resistance was acceptable.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 1996.05a
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• pp.6-9
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• 1996

The Joining of copper rod and zirconia tube was carried out in Ar gas atmosphere. There are two type of the joining. The one is the reaction bond consisting of Cu and zirconia was dominated by surface reaction wi th a undetctable very thin layer. It was found that copper elements were diffused to zirconia side, but that most of Z $r^{4+}$ ions were not diffused to copper side. This result means application of a DC voltage to migrate oxygen to the copper/zirconia interface can oxidize metal at the copper /zirconia interface, and the bonding reaction between zirconia and copper oxide may occur. The other is the reaction bonding was dominated by interdiffusion with a very thick interface layer. This result means application of a DC voltage can reduce zirconia at the interface. The bonding reaction is to be an alloying between Zr and Cr.

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
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• 2006.09a
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• pp.511-512
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• 2006

Tungsten coatings with different interlayers onto the oxygen-free copper substrates were fabricated by atmosphere plasma spraying. The effects of different interlayers of NiCrAl, NiAl and W/Cu on bonding strength were studied. SEM, EDS and XRD were used to investigate the photographs and compositions of these coatings. The tungsten coatings with different initial particle sizes resulted in different microstructures. Oxidation was not detected in the tungsten coating, but in the interlayer, it was found by both XRD and EDS. The tungsten coating deposited directly onto the copper substrate presented higher bonding strength than those with different interlayers.

• 연구논문집
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• s.24
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• pp.63-79
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• 1994

This article reports a experimental study of the method to achieve a bond joint at lower temperature in a short time. DC magnetron sputtering of Sn, Sn/Pb, Sn/In and Sn/Cu on copper substrate was provided as an interlayer for Cu to Cu bonding under the air environment. Various examination was conducted and investigated on the effect of experimental parameters such as coating materials, coating time(or coating thickness), bonding temperature and bonding time etc. Bonding was performed at the temperature of $210^\circC-320^\circC$ for 0sec and interfacial reaction between the coated layer and copper substrate was examined using optical, scanning electron microscope and x-ray diffractometer. From the obtained results, it was found that intermetallic compounds layer consisted of $\eta-phase(Cu_6Sn_5)$ and $\beta-phase(Cu_3Sn)$ was formed at the joint interface for almost all coating materials. But the dominant phase formed in the preetched Cu substrate coated with Sn was $\beta-phase$. A characteristic morphology looks like a reaction ring, which was believed as the strong interconnecting regions between two substrates, was found to be formed on the reaction surface of copper substrates. The morphologies and compositions of the intermetallics, which depends on the regions of the reaction surface, was appeared as greatly different. Based on above results, the new bonding process to make the joint at lower temperature for short time can be admitted as a feasible process.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.592-597
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• 2006

A deoxidized low-phosphorous (DLP) copper was processed by accumulative roll-bonding (ARB) for ultra grain refinement and high strengthening. Two copper sheets 1 mm thick, 30 mm wide and 300 mm long are first degreased and wire-brushed for sound bonding. The sheets are then stacked to each other, and roll-bonded by about 50% reduction rolling without lubrication at ambient temperature. The bonded sheet is then cut to the two pieces of same dimensions and the same procedure was repeated to the sheets up to eight cycles (${\varepsilon}{\sim}6.3$). TEM observation revealed that ultrafine grains were developed after the 4th cycle, and their size decreased at higher cycles. Tensile strength of the copper increased with the equivalent strain, and it reached 547 MPa which was 3 times higher than that of the initial material. It is concluded that the ARB process is an effective method for high strengthening of the DLP copper.