The role of Reactive Ion Etching(RIE) on wirebond formation: A study on successful rate of thermosonic gold wire on aluminium bondpad

Wire bond has been an important tool in the world of microelectronic interconnections. The effect of Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) on the successful rate of thermosonic bonding using gold wire on aluminium pad is studied. Surface morphology images from Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) are used as correlation comparison. In this work wire bonding adhesion is studied on two different surface conditions, which are treated with RIE and the other without RIE treatment. In this experiment only the bonding time was varied for each set of experiments. Results of the wire bond from both samples, with and without RIE were compared. The RIE treated surfaces yield better adhesion results in this work.