SURFACE-ANALYSIS IN MICROELECTRONICS

The contribution given by surface analysis to solve some problems enco untered in the production of electronic power devices have been discus sed. Mainly two types of problems have been faced. One of these deal w ith interfacial chemistry. Three examples have been investigated. The first applies to the improvement of the quality and the reliability of plastic packages through the optimization of the resin/metal and resi n/die adhesion. The second relies to the adhesion between polyimide an d silicon nitride used in the multilevel technology . The third exampl e refers to the so called die-attach process and related problems. Ano ther area of interest in microelectronics is that of the erosion of va rious types of surfaces and the possibility of wrong etching. A few ex amples of the application of surface analytical techniques for these p roblems will be presented. XPS and SIMS working in imaging and multipo int analysis mode, scanning acoustic microscopy, contact angle measure ments as well as peeling and tensile strength measurements are the mai n tools used to obtain useful data.