Package hermeticity testing with thermal transient measurements

The rapid incursion of new technologies such as MEMS and smart sensor device manufacturing requires new tailor-made packaging designs. In many applications these devices are exposed to humid environments. Since the penetration of moisture into the package may result in internal corrosion or shift of the operating parameters, the reliability testing of hermetically sealed packages has become a crucial question in the semiconductor industry. Thermal transient testing, a well known technique for thermal characterization of IC packages can be a suitable method for detecting hermeticity failures in packaged semiconductor and MEMS devices. In the paper this measuring technique is evaluated. Experiments were done on different measurement setups at different environment temperature and RH levels. Based on the results, a new method for package hermeticity testing is proposed.