T7 - Thermal stress failures in micro-electronics: Prediction and prevention

Dr. E. Suhir, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, and University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Dr. E. Suhir, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, and University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Thermal loading takes place, and thermal stresses occur, during the normal operation of the system, as well as during its fabrication, testing, transportation or storage. Such a loading is particularly high in power electronics. Thermally induced failures in microelectronic equipment can be prevented only provided that predictive modeling and accelerated life testing is consistently used in addition (and, desirably, prior) to the qualification testing.

Describe the thermal stress problem(s) in micro-electronic packaging, and provide recommendations for the physical design for reliability of micro-electronic assemblies and packages.

Engineers, scientists and managers involved or interested in the reliability of micro-electronic materials and structures subjected to thermally induced loading

• Thermal Stress Problem
• Thermal Stress Modeling
• Thermal Stress Evaluation and Reduction
• “Global” and “Local” Thermal Mismatch Induced Stress
• Thermally matched Assemblies
• Thermal Stress in Thin Films
• Thermal Stress and Thermal Stress Induced Bow in Plastic Packages of IC Devices
• Thermal Stress in Opto-Electronic and Photonic Structures
• Accelerated Life Testing (ALT)
• Accelerated Life Testing of an Assembly Subjected to Thermal Stresses

Dr. Suhir is Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (ret), Basic Research, Physical Sciences and Engineering Research Division, Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ. Dr. Suhir is currently on the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department, University of California at Santa Cruz, CA. He is also Visiting Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland at College Park, MD. Dr. Suhir is a founder, CEO and President of the ERS/Siloptix Co., which is funded through the Government grants. He is Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE). Dr. Suhir is co-founder (with Dr. Peter Engel) of the ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging and served as its Technical Editor for eight years (1993-2001). He has authored about 250 technical publications (papers, book chapters, books, patents), including monographs “Structural Analysis of Microelectronic and Fiber Optic Systems”, Van-Nostrand, 1991 and “Applied Probability for Engineers and Scientists”, McGraw-Hill, 1997. Springer is planning now to issue the second edition of this monograph.

Dr. Suhir is Member-at-Large of the IEEE Technical Activity Board (TAB), New Technologies Directions Committee (NTDC) and Co-Chairman of its Group on Portable Information Devices. He is also Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE CPMT Society and Member of the Editorial Board of the IEEE CPMT Transactions on Advanced Packaging.

Dr. Suhir presented numerous invited and keynote talks and taught many professional development courses on various topics of materials, structural, reliability, electrical, optical and mechanical engineering. Dr. Suhir organized many successful conferences and symposia worldwide, and received numerous distinguished service and professional awards. Some of his recent professional awards are:

• 2004 ASME Worcester Read Warner Medal for outstanding contributions to the permanent literature of engineering through a series of papers in Mechanical, Microelectronic, and Optoelectronic Engineering, which established a new discipline known as the Structural Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic Systems;
• 2001 IMAPS John A. Wagnon Technical Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the technical knowledge of the microelectronics, optoelectronics, and packaging industry;
• 2000 IEEE-CPMT Outstanding Sustained Technical Contribution Award for outstanding, sustained and continuing contributions to the technologies in fields encompassed by the CPMT Society;
• 2000 SPE International Engineering/Technology (Fred O. Conley) Award for outstanding pioneering and continuing contributions to plastics engineering; and
• 1999 ASME and Pi-Tau-Sigma Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to mechanical engineering.