In general, there is an accelerating trend toward System-in-Package (SiP) chip designs including Package- On-Package (POP) and 3D/2.5D-stacks where complex mechanical forces — primarily driven by the many Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) mismatches within and between chips and packages — influence the electrical properties of ICs. In this era, the industry needs to be able to model and control the mechanical and thermal properties of the combined chip-package, and so we need ways to feed data back and forth between designers, chip fabs, and Out-Sourced Assembly and Test (OSAT) companies. With accelerated yield ramps needed for High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) of consumer mobile products, to minimize risk of expensive Work In Progress (WIP) moving through the supply chain a lot of data needs to feed-forward and feedback.

Calvin Cheung, ASE Group Vice President of Business Development & Engineering, discussed these trends in the “Scaling the Walls of Sub-14nm Manufacturing” keynote panel discussion during the recent SEMICON West 2015. “In the old days it used to take 12-18 months to ramp yield, but the product lifetime for mobile chips today can be only 9 months,” reminded Cheung. “In the old days we used to talk about ramping a few thousand chips, while today working with Qualcomm they want to ramp millions of chips quickly. From an OSAT point of view, we pride ourselves on being a virtual arm of the manufacturers and designers,” said Cheung, “but as technology gets more complex and ‘knowledge-base- centric” we see less release of information from foundries. We used to have larger teams in foundries.” Dick James of ChipWorks details the complexity of the SiP used in the Apple Watch in his recent blog post at SemiMD, and documents the details behind the assumption that ASE is the OSAT.

With single-chip System-on-Chip (SoC) designs the ‘final test’ can be at the wafer-level, but with SiP based on chips from multiple vendors the ‘final test’ now must happen at the package-level,and this changes the Design For Test (DFT) work flows. DRAM in a 3D stack (FIGURE 1) will have an interconnect test and memory Built-In Self-Test (BIST) applied from BIST resident on the logic die connected to the memory stack using Through-Silicon Vias (TSV).

Fig.1: Schematic cross-sections of different 3D System-in-Package (SiP) design types. (Source: Mentor Graphics)

“The test of dice in a package can mostly be just re-used die-level tests based on hierarchical pattern re-targeting which is used in many very large designs today,” said Ron Press, technical marketing director of Silicon Test Solutions, Mentor Graphics, in discussion with SemiMD.

“Additional interconnect tests between die would be added using boundary scans at die inputs and outputs, or an equivalent method. We put together 2.5D and 3D methodologies that are in some of the foundry reference flows. It still isn’t certain if specialized tests will be required to monitor for TSV partial failures.”

“Many fabless semiconductor companies today use solutions like scan test diagnosis to identify product- specific yield problems, and these solutions require a combination of test fail data and design data,” explained GeirEdie,Mentor Graphics’ product marketing manager of Silicon Test Solutions. “Getting data from one part of the fabless organization to another can often be more challenging than what one should expect. So, what’s often needed is a set of ‘best practices’ that covers the entire yield learning flow across organizations.”

“We do need a standard for structuring and trans- mitting test and operations meta-data in a timely fashion between companies in this relatively new dis-aggregated semiconductor world across Fabless, Foundry, OSAT, and OEM,” asserted John Carulli, GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ deputy director of Test Development & Diagnosis, in an exclusive discussion with SemiMD. “Presently the databases are still proprietary – either internal to the company or as part of third-party vendors’ applications.” Most of the test-related vendors and users are supporting development of the new Rich Interactive Test Database (RITdb) data format to replace the Standard Test Data Format (STDF) originally developed by Teradyne.

“The collaboration across the semiconductor ecosystem placed features in RITdb that understand the end-to-end data needs including security/provenance,” explained Carulli. FIGURE 2 shows that since RITdb is a struc- tured data construct, any data from anywhere in the supply chain could be easily communicated, supported, and scaled regardless of OSAT or Fabless customer test program infrastructure. “If RITdb is truly adopted and some certification system can be placed around it to keep it from diverging, then it provides a standard core to transmit data with known meaning across our dis-aggregated semiconductor world. Another key part is the Test Cell Communication Standard Working Group; when integrated with RITdb, the improved automation and control path would greatly reduce manually communicated understanding of operational practices/issues across companies that impact yield and quality.”

Fig.2: Structure of the Rich Interactive Test Database (RITdb) industry standard, showing how data can move through the supply chain. (Source: Texas Instruments)

Phil Nigh, GLOBALFOUNDRIES Senior Technical Staff, explained to SemiMD that for heterogeneous integration of different chip types the industry has on-chip temperature measurement circuits which can monitor temperature at a given time, but not necessarily identify issues cause by thermal/ mechanical stresses. “During production testing, we should detect mechanical/thermal stress ‘failures’ using product testing methods such as IO leakage, chip leakage, and other chip performance measurements such as FMAX,” reminded Nigh.

Model but verify

Metrology tool supplier Nanometrics has unique perspective on the data needs of 3D packages since the company has delivered dozens of tools for TSV metrology to the world. The company’s UniFire 7900 Wafer-Scale Packaging (WSP) Metrology System uses white-light inter- ferometry to measure critical dimensions (CD), overlay, and film thicknesses of TSV, micro-bumps, Re-Distri- bution Layer (RDL) structures, as well as the co-planarity of Cu bumps/pillars. Robert Fiordalice, Nanometrics’ Vice President of UniFire business group, mentioned to SemiMD in an exclusive interview that new TSV struc- tures certainly bring about new yield loss mechanisms, even if electrical tests show standard results such as ‘partial open.’ Fiordalice said that, “we’ve had a lot of pull to take our TSV metrology tool, and develop a TSV inspection tool to check every via on every wafer.” TSV inspection tools are now in beta-tests at customers.

As reported at 3Dincites, Mentor Graphics showed results at DAC2015 of the use of Calibre 3DSTACK by an OSAT to create a rule file for their Fan-Out Wafer-Level Package (FOWLP) process. This rule file can be used by any designer targeting this package technology at this assembly house, and checks the manufacturing constraints of the package RDL and the connectivity through the package from die-to-die and die-to-BGA. Based on package information including die order, x/y position, rotation and orientation, Calibre 3DSTACK performs checks on the interface geometries between chips connected using bumps, pillars, and TSVs. An assembly design kit provides a standardized process both chip design companies and assembly houses can use to ensure the manufacturability and performance of 3D SiP.

This article was first published on SemiMD, part of the Solid State Technology network.