The story behind the red phosphorus mold compound device failures

A family of mold compounds with red phosphorus flame retardant was introduced as an environmentally-friendly encapsulant for semiconductor devices. However, these mold compounds introduced product failures, including current leakage and resistive shorts between adjacent leads inside the leaded semiconductor device package, and resistance increases and open circuits of the wire bonds. This paper presents the family of mold compounds with the red phosphorus flame retardant, the failure mechanisms and the root cause of the failures.