Golden bump for 20micron diameter wire bond enhancement at reduced process temperature

With the rapid development of advanced microelectronic packaging technologies, research on fine-pitch wire bonding with improved reliability is driven by demands for smaller form factors and higher performance. In this study, thermosonic wire bonding process with a 20μm wire for fine-pitch interconnection is described. To strengthen stitch bonds made in a gold–silver bonding system when the bonding temperature is as low as 150°C, ball bumps (security bump) are placed on top of the stitch bonds. The ball–stitch bond and bump forming parameters are optimized using a design of experiment (DOE) method. A comparison of pull test results for stitch bonds with and without security bumps shows a substantial increase of the stitch pull force (PF) due to the use of security bonds. By varying the relative position of the security bumps to the stitch bonds via wedge shift offset (WSO), a WSO window ranging from 15 to 27μm results in stitch PF higher than 7gf, which is equivalent to an increase in average stitch PF of 118%.