Development of Empirical Equations for Metal Trace Failure Prediction of Wafer Level Package Under Board Level Drop Test

Accompanying the increasing popularity of portable and handheld products, high reliability for board level drop test becomes a great concern for semiconductor and electronic product manufacturers. Meanwhile, for design purpose, a reliable impact life prediction model is also a must in estimating the performance of packages subjected to drop impact. In this study, a stress-buffer-enhanced package is proposed to meet the high drop test performance requirement. Both the drop test experiment and numerical simulation were performed. The experimental drop test results showed that a different failure mode, the broken metal trace at package side, was observed in the stress-buffer-enhanced package. Several drop test simulations were conducted to elucidate the mechanical behavior of the test board and packages during the blink of impact. Based on the simulation results, a metal trace impact life prediction model is then developed for the novel stress-buffer-enhanced package to forecast the number of drops. Unlike the thermal cycle test, the dynamic response of the drop impact is irregular and not cyclic. As such, the concept of cumulative damage is considered in the life prediction model. Several characteristics of the metal trace dynamic response, the cumulative fatigue life, the cumulative plastic strain, and the cumulative effective plastic deformation, were studied during the development of the life prediction model. The results showed that the cumulative plastic strain of the metal trace could accurately predict impact life.