Experimental evaluation on the silicon mechanical performance of electronic packaging

Semiconductor packaging is trending towards a miniaturisation in size but an increase in functionality. Hence, the thickness of the silicon wafer has decreased dramatically with a concern on the possible degradation of the strength of the thinned wafer. In this paper, 3point bend (3PB) on bare silicon is selected as the preferred silicon break strength (SBS) test methodology due to its setup effectiveness and subsequent application in the prediction study. This experimental testing study focused on evaluating the SBS from different thickness ranges. The study was then followed by evaluating the influence of a possible impact from flaw creation with laser marking on silicon surfaces. The results show that the SBS is consistent although with significant differences in the silicon thickness ranges. It is also revealed that the onset breaking load may not be a suitable metric and could be over sensitive on gauging the SBS comparison. The flaw creation from the engraving process revealed a significant drop of 75% SBS although with an approximate depth removal of