Correlation of surface mount plastic package reliability testing to nondestructive inspection by scanning acoustic microscopy

The effects of delamination at the mold component/die interface during reliability testing are investigated using scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM), and electrical and physical analyses. The SAM results are correlated with electrical end point (EEP) tests and destructive physical analysis. The spread of delamination during temperature cycling of units is examined. It is demonstrated that scanning acoustic microscopy provides a significant improvement over cross sectioning for the inspection of critical defects in IC packages. The impact of this result on a test method for package reliability evaluation based on inspection for package cracks is discussed.>