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Issues with Gold Electroplating for Microelectromechanical System Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Caroline A. Kondoleon  and
Thomas F. Marinis
Caroline A. Kondoleon
Affiliation:
Electronics Packaging and Prototyping Division, The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA 02139
Thomas F. Marinis
Affiliation:
Electronics Packaging and Prototyping Division, The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA 02139
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Abstract

Electro-plated gold films are used extensively in packaging of MEM sensors to make connections to signal conditioning electronics. Over the past two years, production lots of gold plated substrates, procured from various vendors, failed an accelerated aging qualification test. In this test, 0.0025 [mm] diameter aluminum wires were ultrasonically welded to the film, aged at 120°C for 48 hours, and then pulled to destruction. The criterion for passing this test was that the wires should break both before and after aging. In the defective lots, the wires lifted off of the gold film after aging. Analysis of these defective films by SEM, Auger, and TOF-SIMS suggested that residues, deposited from the plating bath, concentrated beneath the bond as the gold and aluminum reacted to form an inter-metallic compound during aging. A combination, etch and cleaning treatment was developed for defective substrates, which removed a sufficient amount of residues from the gold to pass the qualification test.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 687: Symposium B – Materials Science of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Devices IV , 2001 , B5.18
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2002

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