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School of Microelectronic Engineering

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PERLIS (UniMAP)
Course : Diploma of Microelectronics Engineering
Code
DMT 244
Subject title Failure Analysis
Semester/Ye Semester 2 Session 2014/2015
ar
Lecturer

En. Ahmad Syahir bin Ahmad

Bakhit

Title

Scanning acoustic microscoppy

Submission Date
Due Date

27 February 2015
27 February 2015

No.

Student Name

Matrix No.

MOHAMMAD SUKRI BIN MOHD JAAFAR

122010695

NURFATIN SHAMIMI BINTI ROHAIZAD

132010782

MOHAMAD NAZMI BIN MAN

132010385

MOHAMAD ZIYAD IRHAM BIN MOHD

RAFI
AMIRUL USSUMUDEEM BIN BADROL
SHAM

132010625

132010091

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1.0 INTRODUCTION
In this modernization era, the level of technology used in our daily life was increasing quantumly
since past 19th century. Therefore the requirement of a very powerful and precise device is almostly the
needed in every researches and product development process. Scanning Aquostic Microscopy (SAM) is
a new device that is a much powerful device that can be used in the study of physical properties of
elements nowdays. It have the main functionality of imaging the interior structure from many solid
materials and on the other hand, this device is particularly used in the examination of electronic devices
in microelectronics industries.
By the way this devices is mostly used in the non-destructive inspection process method in
failure analysis in industries due to its properties. Besides of that advantages, todays semiconductors
industry also has realized the importance of that device in the industry in improving their own
production quality due to its ability to detect voids, cracks and delamination in the microelectronics
packages besides of imaging their interior structure.for another purposes like an experiment.
Scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) is a non-invasive, non-destructive technique that can be
used to image the internal features of a specimen. It is currently less used than X-ray due its less familiar
underlying technology, and a more complex process requiring greater skill and training to operate and
interpret. Nonetheless, SAM provides some advantages over other available NDT technologies which
make it a superior tool for certain materials and processes. SAM is highly sensitive to the presence of
delaminations, which are difficult to detect using X-ray radiography. SAM can detect delaminations at
sub-micron thicknesses. It is one of the only techniques capable of efficiently evaluating popcorning in
PBGAs. SAM can also evaluate low and high-density plastic materials. SAM is particularly useful for
inspection of small, complex devices. It can detect sub-micron air gaps, as thin as 0.13m and has a
defect resolution of 5m, allowing for inspection of interconnects. SAM can also be used to measure
the thickness of an internal layer of material. Overall, SAM is an efficient tool for evaluating such things
as printed circuit boards, underfills, BGAs, wire bonds, discrete components, and wafers.

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2.0 HISTORY
The SAM used today in the IC is a hybrid instrument with characteristic of both the SAM
developed at Stanford in the early of 1970s, and the c-scan which has been a part of the non-destructive
test (NDT) industry since the 1950s. From the beginning SAMs operated at frequency of 1GHz and
higher became commercially available industry was the high frequency inpection of devices layer near
the surface of the die. After 1988, limitation of detection by amplitude alone in plastic-package IC were
recognized. Reports using SAM instrument dedicated to IC package inpection began to appear. Some
of these instrument had the ability to detect phase inversion.
First SAM was developed in 1974 by R.A Lemons and C.F Quate at the microwave laboratory
of Standford university. Since then, many improvement to such system have been made to enhance
resolution and accuracy. The scientific literature shows very little progress toward an acoustic
microscope following the Dunn and Fry experiments up until about 1970 when two groups of activity
emerged, one headed by C.F. Quate (Stanford University) and the other by A. Korpel and L.W. Kessler
(Zenith Radio Research Labs).
The first efforts to develop an operational acoustic microscope concentrated upon highfrequency adaptations of low-frequency ultrasonic visualization methods. One early system employed
Bragg diffraction imaging, which is based upon direct interaction between an acoustic-wave field and a
laser light beam.
Another example was based on variations of the Pohlman cell. The original device is based upon
a suspension of asymmetric particles in a thin fluid layer which, when acted upon by acoustic energy,
produce visual reflectivity changes. Cunningham and Quate modified this by suspending tiny latex
spheres in a fluid.
Acoustic pressure caused population shifts which were visually detectable. Kessler and Sawyer
developed a liquid crystal cell that enabled sound to be detected by hydrodynamic orientation of the
fluid. In 1973, the Quate group began the development of a concept, which utilized a confocal pair of
acoustic lenses for focusing and detecting the ultrasonic energy. In 1970, the Korpel and Kessler group
began to pursue a scanning laser detection system for acoustic microscopy. In 1974, the activity was
shifted to another organization under Kessler (Sonoscan Inc), where practical aspects of the instrument
were developed. This instrument, the scanning laser acoustic microscope (SLAM), was made
commercial.

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3.0 ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF SAM

ADVANTAGES

Nondestructive images can be made of

DISADVANTAGES

Higher temperatures

specific desired depths within the device.

Save user time

Higher cost.

Easy to handle

Sensitive tool

prevents companies from shipping bad

products and saves them thousands of
dollars

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4.0 SAM IN LABORATORY

Scanning Acoustic Microscopy Laboratory - uses non-destructive techniques to image
the mechanical and internal microstructure of nontransparent mineralized tissues and biomaterials.
Scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) is a non-destructive technique that can be used to image the
internal microstructure of nontransparent solids and surface mechanical properties. In acoustic
microscopy, the focused acoustic wave is transmitted through the coupling liquid and interacts with
specimens. The intensities of the collected signals are measured as mechanical properties such as
density, elastic modulus under physiological conditions. There are two advantages in using SAM
compared to optical or scanning electron microscopy: Non-destructive subsurface features detection
lying in the ability of the acoustic waves to penetrate opaque materials. Non-destructive mechanical
properties visualization and analysis. Scanning Acoustic Microscopy Laboratory features:
KSI 2000 High Frequency scanning acoustic microscope (HF SAM) (Kramer scientific
instruments, Germany)

Working frequencies from 100 MHz to 2 GHz

Resolutions up to 0.4 m, which is the highest available resolution for commercial scanning
acoustic microscopes in the world

KSI WINSAM 100 Low Frequency scanning acoustic microscope (LF SAM) (Kramer
scientific instruments, Germany)

Examine the surface, the inside or the back of larger specimen

10, 30, 50 and 100 MHz acoustic lenses

Image with 512 x 512 pixels and 256 gray levels

Resolution 1280 x 1024

A-Scan (point echo histogram), B-Scan (section image), D-scan (diagonal section image

Scan speed up to 500 mm/s

Movement range up to 300mm in x and y direction

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Integrated image processing functions

Autoscan function

Evaluation of the amplitude (gray values) from the echo signal using calibration materials. An
impedance value is assigned to every grey value

FREQUENCY PENET.DEPTH

LAT.

FOCAL

RESOLUTION LENGTHS

2000 MHz

3 m

0.4 m

46 m

1000 MHz

15 m

1.1 m

46 m

400 MHz /60

100 m

3 m

230 m

400 MHz/120

80 m

2.5 m

230 m

200 MHz /60

500 m

7.5 m

575 m

200 MHz/120

400 m

5 m

575 m

100 MHz

1000 m

15 m

2300 m

80 MHz

18 m

6 - 9 mm

50 MHz

30 m

8 - 13 mm

25 MHz

60 m

15 mm

20 MHz

75 m

15 mm

10 MHz

150 m

15 mm

(Approximate values. Kramer scientific instruments, Germany, 2001)

Applications
Materials science and mechanical engineering, e.g. subsurface damage imaging, coating
thickness measurement and delamination detection, material characterization, stress/strain
analysis.

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Semiconductor, e.g. IC packaging inspection, wafer evaluation, etc.

FIGURE 4.1 SCANNING ACOUSTIC MICROSOPY

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5.0 TYPES OF SAM

The most important types of Scanning Acoustic Microscopes which are in use today are the:

SLAM (Scanning Laser Acoustic Microscope)

- known as Through-Mode
- creates an acoustic shadowgraph from the

exiting ultrasound.

C-SAM (C-Mode Scanning Acoustic Microscope)

- known as Reflection-Mode
- creates images from the reflected ultrasound

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6.0 SAM PROCESS

The ultrasonic transducer raster-scans the top surface of the sample. Several thousand pulses
enter the sample each second. Each pulse may be scattered or absorbed in passing through
homogeneous parts of the sample. At material interfaces, a portion of the pulse is reflected back to the
transducer, where it is received and its amplitude recorded.
In the acoustic image and side-view diagram of the plastic-encapsulated IC to the right, ultrasound was
pulsed through the black mold compound (plastic), and reflected from:
1. the interface between the overlying mold compound and the top surface of the silicon die.
2. the interface between the overlying mold compound and the top surface of the die paddle.
3. the interface between the overlying mold compound and delaminations (red) on top of the die
paddle.
4. the interface between the overlying mold compound and the outer portion (lead fingers) of the
lead frame.

FIGURE 6.1
A pulse of ultrasound from the transducer might travel nanoseconds or microseconds to reach an
internal interface and be reflected back to the transducer. If there are several internal interfaces at
different depths, the echoes will arrive at the transducer at different times. Planar acoustic images do not
often use all return echoes from all depths to make the visible acoustic image. Instead, a time window is
created that accepts only those return echoes from the depth of interest. This process is known as
gating the return echoes.
In the image of the plastic-encapsulated IC above, gating was on a depth that included the
silicon die, the die paddle and the lead frame.

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FIGURE 6.2
Still scanning the top of the sample, the gating of the return echoes was then changed to include
only the plastic encapsulant (mold compound) above the die. The resulting acoustic image is shown
above. It shows the structure of the particle-filled plastic mold compound, as well as the circular mold
marks at the top surface of the component. The small white features are voids (trapped bubbles) in the
mold compound. (These voids are also visible in the previous image as dark acoustic shadows.)

FIGURE 6.3

Gating was then changed to include only depth of the die attach material that attaches the silicon die
to the die paddle. The die, the die paddle, and other features above and below the die attach depth are
ignored. In the resulting acoustic image, shown above slightly magnified, the red areas are voids
material.

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FIGURE 6.4
Finally, the plastic-encapsulated IC was flipped over and imaged from the back side. The return
echoes were gated on the depth where the backside mold compound interfaces with the back side of the
die paddle. The small black dots in the acoustic image above are small voids (trapped bubbles) in the
compound.

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8.0 REFERENCE
http://dentistry.umkc.edu/Department_Organizations/crisp/facilities/ac
coustic.shtml
https://www.google.com.my/search?
q=advantages+scanning+acoustic+microscopy
Wickramasinghe, H.K., Scanning Acoustic Microscopy: A Revie,. In:
Journal of Microscopy, 129,63-73, 1983.
Briggs, Andrew, An Introduction to Scanning Acoustic Microscopy,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1-27,49-63,1985.
Khuri-Yakub, B.T., Acoustic Microscopy: Principles and Applications,
In: Bloor, David et. al. (Ed) The Encyclopedia of Advanced Material,.
Oxford: Pergamon Press, 19-30, 1994.
Tsinghua University ofChina , THMUT-2 Miniaturised Multipurpose
Ultrasonic Testing System Instruction Manual, 1998.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAG
E
INTRODUCTION..
HISTORY
ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF SAM
SAM IN LABORATORY..
TYPES OF SAM.
SAM PROCESS..
CONCLUSION...
REFERENCE..

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8.0 CONCLUSION
The samples imaged by acoustic microscopes are typically assemblies of one or more solid
materials that have at least one surface that is either flat or regularly curved. The depth of interest may
involve an internal bond between materials, or a depth at which a defect may occur in a homogeneous
material. In addition, samples may be characterized without imaging to determine, e.g., their acoustic
impedance.
Because of their ability to find visualize features non-destructively, acoustic microscopes are
widely used in the production of electronic components and assemblies for quality control, reliability
and failure analysis. Usually the interest is in finding and analyzing internal defects such as
delaminations, cracks and voids, although an acoustic microscope may also be used simply to verify (by
material characterization or imaging, or both) that a given part or a given material meets specifications
or, in some instances, is not counterfeit. Acoustic microscopes are also used to image printed circuit
boards and other assemblies.
There are in addition numerous applications outside of electronics. The assembly of numerous
medical products uses acoustic microscopes to investigate internal bonds and features. For example, a
polymer film may be imaged to examine its bond to a multi-channel plastic plate used in blood analysis.
In many industries, products that involve tubing, ceramic materials, composite materials or some types
of welds may be imaged acoustically.