Journal of Materials Processing Technology 138 (2003) 361365

Optimization of process conditions for the transfer molding of electronic packages

K.W. Tong, C.K. Kwong*, K.W. Ip
Department of Manufacturing Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, PR China

Abstract Transfer molding is used extensively in electronic packaging. To achieve a high production rate and high molding quality, it is necessary to have strict control on the epoxy resin characteristics as well as identify the optimal process conditions of the transfer molding. In this paper, process simulations of transfer molding for electronic packages were conducted according to Taguchi experiments. The simulation results were then used to derive quality indexes by using TOPSIS (techniques for order preference by similarity of ideal solution) algorithm. Through the analysis of the quality indexes, optimal process conditions can be identied. Two verication tests were carried out and results of the tests are found very close to the predictions. This project has demonstrated that numerical simulation combining with Taguchi method and TOPSIS can be a useful tool for optimization of process conditions for transfer molding of electronic packages. # 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Process condition; Process simulation; Transfer molding; Taguchi method; TOPSIS; Electronic packages

1. Introduction The microelectronic industry continues to grow rapidly in size and importance. The industry has already reached the size of other major industries with sales of product and equipment totaling billions of dollars a year. Among all the options available for semiconductor assembly, plastic packaging by using epoxy based transfer molding process is less expensive and account for approximately 80% of the worldwide packaging share and this percentage has kept increasing. Transfer molding of electronic packages is one of the important processes of semiconductor manufacturing. During the molding process, the chip bonded leadframes are loaded into a heated multi-cavity molding tool and thermoset material is then transferred into it. The molded plastic is then cured to protect the chip and leadframe from physical damage and contamination. Quality of the process is heavily dependent on the encapsulation mold design, selection of molding compound and process conditions of transfer molding. Transfer molding of electronic packages is a more complicated and difcult process to treat analytically than either thermoplastic extrusion or injection molding because of the time-dependent behavior of the molding compound, the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 852-27666610; fax: 852-23625267. E-mail address: mfckkong@inet.polyu.edu.hk (C.K. Kwong).

irregular cross-section of the runners and the presence of IC chips/wires in the mold cavities in most applications. In current practice, process conditions of transfer molding are determined manually in a trial-and-error manner. Experienced molding personnel is always involved to perform the task. In the molding of electronic packages, several defects may occur such as porosity, voids, sink marks, microcracks, ash, or wire sweep. Adjustment of the process conditions is the most popular way to eliminate the defects. For example, wire sweep can be reduced by decreasing the resin ow rate. The strong competition within the industry and rapid evolution of microelectronic encapsulation require more powerful tools than experience and intuition to determine the optimal process conditions of transfer molding for electronic packages in order to achieve high production rate and high molding quality. Quite a number of researches have been conducted based on nite element method (FEM), nite difference method (FDM), computational uid dynamics, and analytical models to perform the ow modeling of transfer molding for electronic packages and predict the mold defects such as wire sweep, voids, incomplete lling, resin bleed and paddle shift. Their works aim to assist the molding personnel in the identication of corrective modications to the mold design, and the determination of proper process conditions. In 1993, Nguyen [1] applied reactive ow simulation in transfer molding of electronic packages that aims to yield acceptable mold design and process conditions. Han [2]

0924-0136/03/$ see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0924-0136(03)00099-2

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performed the research in the plastic encapsulation of semiconductor chips that include the ow modeling during the transfer molding process based on the numerical simulation, wire sweep analysis based on the Oseen model, the Faxen model and structural analysis, and experimental study of the rheological characteristics of epoxy molding compound (EMC). In 1995, Han [3] attempted to analyze the ow of EMC in the chip cavity, particularly to model the ow through the openings in the leadframe and correctly treat the thermal boundary condition at the leadframe based on the HeleShaw approximation. Kuah et al. [4] adopted the FEM and the FDM together with an analytical model to predict the lling prole, melt-front advancement and wire sweep of PQFP during the transfer molding process. Many efforts have been made in several papers to analyze the wire sweep during the molding of electronic packages based on the FEM, structural analysis, computational uid dynamics and analytical models [57]. The results of some of the above research have been commercialized as a simulation package for the transfer molding of electronic packages, named C-Mold Microchip Encapsulation. In the following, process simulation combining with Taguchi method [8] and TOPSIS (techniques for order preference by similarity of ideal solution) algorithm [9] is described to determine optimal process conditions for the transfer molding of electronic packages.

analysis makes use of the results of reactive molding simulation to obtain the uid velocity and viscosity around the wires. Local ow analysis is used to calculate the drag force along the wire by using an analytical or numerical method. In this research, a numerical method was adopted as it can provide a more accurate calculation of the drag force. Wire deformation analysis can be performed by using an analytical method (circular arch formula) and a numerical method (ABAQUS) to calculate the wire deformation.

3. Design of Taguchi experiments For the determination of the optimal process conditions for the transfer molding of electronic packages, Taguchi experiments were designed which consists of a set of experiments where the settings of the various process parameters that an engineer wants to study from one experiment to another are changed. After the completion of the experiments, the data from all at the experiments in the set are analyzed to determine the effect of the various parameters and allow optimal process conditions to be determined. Conducting Taguchi experiments using orthogonal arrays allows the effects of several parameters to be determined efciently and is an important technique in process design. In this research, the effects of six process parameters on the molding quality have been studied in the Taguchi experiments, which are the ll time, mold temperature, inlet melt temperature, clamping force, initial melt conversion, and post-ll time. For each parameter, two settings are chosen to investigate the sensitivity of individuals. Both the setting of transfer pressure and packing pressure are xed during the various experiments. The objective of the study is to determine the best level for each process parameter so that the chance of package failure would be minimized. The Taguchi experiments were carried out by using process simulations. An orthogonal array for process design can be constructed from the knowledge of control factors, and their levels. In this research, the L8(27) orthogonal array was selected. It has seven column and eight rows. All the entries have two levels. Since only six process parameters are involved, the last column is designated as an empty column. The eight rows of the L8 array represent the eight experiments (process simulations) to be conducted.

2. Process simulation Process simulations of transfer molding for electronic packages provide design and process engineers with information such as positions of ow fronts, spatial distributions of material conversion (degree of cure), temperature, pressure, wall shear stress, shear rate, velocity, and required clamping force. In this research, process simulations were carried out by using C-Mold Reactive Molding and C-Mold Microchip Encapsulation packages. C-Mold Reactive Molding is used to perform mold lling simulation. The mathematical model of it is based on the generalized HeleShaw ow. The program requires the rheological and curing data for the thermoset EMCs. The equations governing the lling analysis are based on the energy equation for non-isothermal lling, a viscosity model for epoxy resin and a kinetic model of the resin. The results from the reactive molding simulation such as the localized x- and y-velocities, temperatures and shear stresses will then be used for the judgement of the EMCs ow conditions. Wire sweep analysis based on C-Mold microchip encapsulation was used to analyze the deformation of bonding wires that connect the chip to the leadframe during molding process. This analysis calculates wire sweep by considering wire deformation due to the viscous drag force of the uid passing the wire during the lling stage of the molding process. The analysis procedures involve three steps: global ow analysis; local ow analysis; wire deformation calculation. Global ow

4. Calculation of quality indexes In this research, ve quality measures for individual process simulations were identied, which are temperature difference, maximum wall shear stress, average melt-front velocity, percentage of lling and percentage of wire sweep. Temperature difference refers to the difference between the core and the cavity mold wall temperature. A high temperature difference could lead to high thermal

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residual stresses in molded packages. Wall shear stress is dened as the shear force at the mold wall per unit area and is proportional to the pressure gradient at each location. Higher shear stress would induce higher orientation and ow instability, especially near the surface of molded packages. Melt-front velocity can contribute to the degree of wire sweep. Normally, lower melt-front velocity can result in a lesser degree of wire sweep. Filling describes the degree of mold cavities to be lled. Wire sweep is referred to the percentage of wire deformation due to the viscous drag force of the uid passing the wire during the lling stages of the molding process. Quality indexes of individual process simulations have to be determined based on these ve quality measures in order to facilitate the determination of the optimal process conditions for the transfer molding. In this project, a multi-attribute decision making algorithm, TOPSIS, was adapted instead of using the signal-to-noise ratio. This is because TOPSIS can provide the relative importance of individual quality measures to be input and help to facilitate global optimization. The algorithm is to determine the alternative that is not only based on the minimum Euclidean distance to the ideal solution in a geometrical sense, but also on the furthest Euclidean distance from the imaginary worst solution, which is treated as a hypothetical solution composing all worst attribute values attainable. To apply the TOPSIS algorithm in this work, a decision matrix (D) has to be constructed rstly as shown below: 3 2 S11 Sij S1n 6 S21 S22 S2 n 7 7 6 7 6 . . . 7 6 . . . D6 . . 7 . 7 6 . . 7 6 . . . 4 . . 5 . . Sm1 Sm2 Smn where Sij is the numerical outcome of the ith quality measure with respect to the jth process simulation. Then the vector normalization is used for computing rij, which is given as Sij rij q Pm 2 ; i1 Sij i 1; . . . ; m ; j 1; . . . ; n

Similarly, the separation from the negative-ideal solution, D i , can be calculated by using the following equation: v uX u n 2 i 1; . . . ; m Di t vij v j ;
j1

where v j is the worst value of jth quality measure. Finally, the quality indexes of individual process simulation, QIi, can be calculated by using the following equation: QIi D i D i ; D i i 1; . . . ; m

5. Industrial case study In this project, an industrial case study of the determination of the optimal process conditions for the transfer molding of Plastic Dual In-line Packages (PDIP) was carried out based on process simulation combined with the Taguchi method and TOPSIS. First, the EMC properties and information of PDIP and the properties of the bonding wire as shown in Tables 1 and 2, respectively, are required for process simulation. Fig. 1 shows the runner layout of PDIP encapsulation mold. The process simulations were carried out based on L8(27) orthogonal array. Setting of two levels of individual process parameters are shown in Table 3. The process conditions of
Table 1 EMC properties and information Type of material Density (g/cm3) Constant polymer specific heat (J/kg C) Constant polymer thermal conduct (W/m C) Pellet diameter (mm) Pellet length (mm) MP8000 1917 1046 0.757 55 37

Table 2 Properties of bonding wire for PDIP Diameter of the wire (mm) Elastic modulus of wire (GPa) Poissons ratio of wire 0.025 17.73 0.368

The weighted normalized value is calculated as vij wj rij ; i 1; . . . ; m; j 1; . . . ; n

where wj is the weighting of the jth quality measure. The separation from the quality measures of individual process simulation to the positive-ideal solution, D i , can be calculated by using the following equation: v uX u n 2 t vij v i 1; . . . ; m D j ; i
j 1

where v j is the best value of the jth quality measure.

Fig. 1. Runner layout of PDIP encapsulation mold.

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Table 3 Setting of levels of process parameters Process parameter Fill time (s) Mold temperature (8C) Inlet melt temperature (8C) Machine clamping force (t) Initial melt conversion Post-fill time (s) Level 1 12 170 103 126 0.001 13 Level 2 18 180 123 154 0.01 17

Table 4 Process conditions of individual process simulationsa PS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 P1 12 12 12 12 18 18 18 18 P2 170 170 180 180 170 170 180 180 P3 103 103 123 123 123 123 103 103 P4 126 154 126 154 126 154 126 154 P5 0.001 0.01 0.001 0.01 0.01 0.001 0.01 0.001 P6 13 17 17 13 13 17 17 13

Fig. 3. Wire sweep at cavity 10 of PDIP mold in process simulation 1. Table 5 Results of process simulationsa PS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
a

QM1 5.44 5.37 4.67 5.21 2.31 2.31 3.81 3.72

QM2 5.5020E003 5.9657E003 4.4697E003 1.0644E002 4.5900E003 3.9380E003 4.5029E003 3.8407E003

QM3 5.0005E001 4.9861E001 5.0267E001 5.0309E001 3.3048E001 3.2790E001 3.3033E001 3.3586E001

QM4 11.59 12.59 11.4 12.63 11.27 9.95 8.59 7.44

QM5 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

a PS: process simulation; P1: fill time; P2: mold temperature; P3: inlet melt temperature; P4: machine clamping force; P5: initial melt conversion; P6: post-fill time.

QM1: temperature difference (8C); QM2: maximum wall shear stress (MPa); QM3: average melt-front velocity (cm/s); QM4: wire sweep (%); QM5: filling (%). Table 6 Quality indexes of individual process simulations QI PS1 0.438 PS2 0.404 PS3 0.528 PS4 0.032 PS5 0.751 PS6 0.815 PS7 0.675 PS8 0.711

Fig. 2. Filling prole of process simulation 1.

Table 7 Average response of each process parameter/level P1 P2 0.622 0.467 P3 0.557 0.532 P4 0.598 0.491 P5 0.623 0.466 P6 0.483 0.606

individual process simulations according to L8(27) orthogonal array are listed in Table 4. Fig. 2 shows the lling prole of process simulation 1 for molding PDIP. Fig. 3 shows the simulation results of wire sweep at the cavity 10 of the PDIP mold in the process simulation 1. Results of the eight process simulation are shown in Table 5. As all the process simulations resulted in complete lling, the quality measure, lling (%), is not considered in the derivation of quality indexes. Therefore, the decision matrix (D) of the TOPSIS algorithm can then be formulated as shown below: 5:44 6 0:0055 6 D4 0:500 11:59 2 5:37 4:67 0:0060 0:0045 0:498 0:503 12:59 11:40 5:21 0:0106 0:503 12:63 2:31 0:0046 0:330 11:27 2:31 0:0040 0:328 9:95

Level 1 Level 2

0.351 0.738

Quality indexes of the individual process conditions are derived based on the TOPSIS algorithm with equal weighting of them. The calculated quality indexes for individual process conditions are shown in Table 6. Table 7 shows the average response for each process parameter per level. From Table 7, the optimal process conditions for molding PDIP can be identied as shown in Table 8. In addition, it can be observed that ll time and inlet melt temperature are 3 3:81 3:72 0:0045 0:0038 7 7 0:330 0:336 5 8:59 7:44

K.W. Tong et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 138 (2003) 361365 Table 8 Optimal process conditions for molding PDIP Fill time (s) Mold temperature (8C) Inlet melt temperature (8C) Machine clamping force (t) Initial melt conversion Post-fill time (s) 18 170 103 126 0.001 17

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Table 9 Results of verification testsa A Voids Sink marks Microcracks Flash Wire sweep (%) Incomplete filling 0.07 mm Nil Acc 0.1 mm 8.8 Nil B Little Nil NA NA 8.2 Nil C 0.09 mm Nil Acc 0.14 mm 10.5 Nil D Little Nil NA Nil 9.95 Nil

a Acc: acceptable; NA: not applicable; A: actual molding results based on the recommended optimal process conditions; B: process simulation results based on the recommended optimal process conditions; C: actual molding results based on the process conditions of process simulation 6; D: process simulation results based on the process conditions of process simulation 6.

transfer molding for electronic packages. C-Mold Reactive Molding and C-Mold Microchip encapsulation packages have been used to carry out the process simulations according to the Taguchi matrix. A multi-attribute decision making algorithm, TOPSIS, was adapted to derive the quality indexes from the results of individual process simulation. Optimal process condition of transfer molding for electronic packages can be identied through the analysis of the quality indexes. In addition, the sensitivity of individual process parameters to molding quality can also be recognized. The results of the process simulations and verication test are found to be very similar. This project has demonstrated that numerical simulation combined with the Taguchi method and TOPSIS can be a useful tool for the optimization of the process conditions for the transfer molding of electronic packages. In this project, all the parameters were treated as independent of each other. Further work will involve the investigation of the presence of interactions among the parameters. In addition, mold design parameters such as gate location and size, ller size and quantity of EMC and paddle shift could be considered in future work.

found to be the most and the least signicant parameters, respectively, to the molding quality. 6. Verification tests This step is done to verify that the optimal process conditions found from the data analysis are valid. Valid means that the optimum is predicable, veriable and reproducible. Verication tests check the results of the optimal process conditions obtained from the above study, and demonstrate the optimum performance. The verication experiment consists of two tests: rst, a test using the process conditions at their optimum levels and secondly, a test using the process conditions of the process simulation which yield the best quality index. The results of each of these tests is checked against the respective predicted results. Both of the tests were conducted in a local semiconductor equipment manufacturing company and the test results were assessed by a molding expert of the company. Table 9 shows the results of the two verication tests and the corresponding process simulation results. From the results of verication tests, good agreement of the optimal process conditions can be observed, which veries the robustness of the optimization. The test results based on the process conditions of process simulation 6 were found to be very close to the prediction from the corresponding process simulation. 7. Conclusions In this research, an L8(27) Taguchi matrix has been developed to determine the optimal process conditions of

Acknowledgements The work described in this paper was substantially supported by a grant from the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (project no. BQ341). The authors would like to thank Kras Asia Ltd. for their assistance in the verication tests of this research.

References
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