Effect of damaged-chip infrared emitter package on Ge substrate

Die cracking is the occurrence of fracture(s) in or on any part of the die of a semiconductor device. Failure caused by die cracking is one of the major concerns in packaging design and reliability. In this paper, fracture is inflicted onto the chip of a few units of p-Ge infrared emitting diode (IRED) package. Failure analysis such as curve tracing, decapsulation and visual inspection as well as SEM and EDX was performed on the units to characterize the fracture pattern and size. The results show dependence of the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic on the severity of the fracture inflicted onto the chip.