UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA PERLIS

SCHOOL OF MATERIALS ENGINE

DIE CONTAMINATION
(POLYMER IN ELECTRONIC APPLICATIONS)
(EBT 435)

By:
LIM WAN WAN
131170834

Lecturer:
DR. TEH PEI LING

DIE CONTAMINATION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Chip also can be known as die. Chips are made from many transistors which packed into
a small piece of silicon [1]. Transistors are wired together by aluminium or copper. All these
transistor has different function [1]. Contamination is the presence of something unwanted,
impure, harmful or unusable [2]. The contamination can be on the surface of the silicon wafer
or within the bulk of silicon wafer [3]. Hence, die contamination is the die which has
unwanted material.
Contamination can be generated during the chip assembly process. It also can be
generated from the surrounding environments. Some of the contamination are easy to remove
while some not. Usually the smallest particles of the contaminations are difficult to remove.
[4]
Contamination affects the yield of the wafer too. This is because the contamination can
cause some defect on the performance of the chip. Hence, contamination on the die can make
the die to be rejected when going through the testing process. So, the yield of the end product
can be low.
Contamination can be categorized into organic contaminants, inorganic contaminants and
particulate contaminants. Examples of the organic contaminants are lubricating oils,
fingerprints, waxes, silicone oils, mold release compounds, polymers, adhesives and
additives. Inorganic contaminants include various metal oxides, polishing compounds,
inorganic salts, dust and silver. Environmental debris, skin flakes, cosmetics and hair are the
example of the particulate contaminants. [4]

2.0 POSSIBLE CAUSE

There are many factors that cause the die contamination. Die contamination can be
category into 4 main group. The 4 main groups is assembly process or method, material,
design and human [5].
During the processing process, the machine may cause the contamination on the die. One
of the examples of the machine part which directly contact with the die is the pick-up tool.
This pick tool is use to pick the die up to another place for the next step. One of the ways the
tool cause the contamination is the corrosion of the tool. When the tool corrode, the corrosion
of the tool may fall or stick on the die surface. Hence, the tool with defect can cause the
contamination on the die surface.
Material that will cause the contamination of the die is the material with contamination.
The example of the material is the flux which uses to apply the solder bump. The flux is
applies between the substrate and the die. This material may contain the foreign material.
Hence the foreign material may adhere to the die surface.
The design of the die also will affect the die contamination. There are a lot of things to
consider to designs a die. One of the criteria to design a die is to have a good protective
coating of the die. When the coating is contamination with foreign material, the die will have
the contamination.
Human is one of the causes to the die contamination. Human produce many
contamination to the die such as skin flakes and hair. This contamination is sticks or stay on
the die. Most of it is the mistake of the human itself. Human contamination easy falls on the
die when operator does not wear a proper attire to work. The example of the proper attire is
wears a jumpsuit which will cover all the hair and body. The operator also needs to wear a
mask to prevent contamination from the mouth area.
The other contamination fall from the human face is the makeup. There are many
chemical in the makeup. These makeups can fall from the face to the die. This is because the
makeup is a temporary material that put on the face to enhance ones beauty. This makeup
will be the impurities to the die. It can be in powder or liquid form.

Another type of contamination on the die which cause by human is fingerprint. This
contamination is the entirely humans fault. This occurs when they touch the die.
There are some contaminations from the environment. Environment can have some dust
on the surrounding air. This can cause the dust being stick to the surface of the die. This dust
is the contamination to the die.
Another environment factor is the failure of the facilities such as air-cond. This air-cond
also has some failure such as water leak from it. This water droplet may drop on the surface
of the die which will lead to contamination on the die.

3.0 POSSIBLE SOLUTION

There are many solutions to the causes of the die contamination. For the same causes can
have different solution to solve the problem. Meanwhile, some solution can be uses for
different causes of the die contamination.
The machine part defect such as pick up tool was corroding. This defect can be overcome
by replace the machine part with a new one. If the defect can be clean out, then clean the
surface of the machine part. It will be better to clean the machine part than replace it because
the cost of the machine tool also quite high.
The material which contain foreign material can be prevent by ensure the material is pure.
The material such as flux need to check the purity before applied it to the solder bump.
Another way is to ensure the flux apply to the solder bump in a clean way. The flux should be
applied by using a clean flux printing. Hence, the flux printing should be clean after every
use.
The solution to the design of the die is depends on the criteria of die design. The
contamination on the die coating material can be prevent by ensure the coating material does
not have the foreign material. The coating material need to be checks its purity. The process
to coat the die also needs to be clean. The apparatus to coat the die also need to be clean after
every use.
One of the solutions to prevent contamination is do the production on a cleanroom.
Cleanroom is the place that builds by human. Originally, cleanroom was built for hospital
surgery. This is because they want to control the airborne bacteria contamination and reduce
post-surgery infection. Then the cleanroom start to use in semiconductor industry after they
realized the importance to control the contamination. [6]
All the persons in charge of the die manufacturing process will needs to wear the proper
attire. Usually, they are the operator. They need to wear jumpsuit with mask which will cover
the whole body of the operator. This is to ensure there will be no contamination fall from the
operator. Example of the contamination is hair and skin flakes. All the attire need to wear
properly. This is to prevent any little contaminants from falls out from the jumpsuit.
However, the attire for the production site still needs to depend on the requirement of the
cleanliness in the production site. Some need to cover all while some not [7].
5

All the workers should not wear any makeup to the production line. These makeups can
fall on the die which causes contamination. Hence, all the workers should wash off the
makeup before enter the production line.
Fingerprint on the die can be prevents by provided finger coats or gloves for all the
workers to wear. This will prevent the fingerprint mark on the die. However, the training
should be given to the workers to ensure they will not touch the die. They should use a
tweezers to touch the die. It will be better if all workers do not touch the die at all no matter
what.
Contamination from the surrounding air can be reduces by having the ventilation air
machine installed. This ventilation air can help with the air flow. Ventilation machine will
replace the contaminated air with the clean air [8]. This also can help in improve the worker
health and the surrounding condition such as humidity and room temperature.
The facility such as air-cond problem can be fixed. The company can hire the technician
to fix the facilities. All the facilities should fix when it is broken. Since there will be a lot of
the air-cond, hence the technician should find out the correct machine and fix it. Furthermore,
the technician should maintain all the facilities condition before it breaks down.
Housekeeping is another important activity must do by every worker. This is especially
important to the factory worker which is work by shift. This will ensure the next worker can
work in a clean environment. The worker also will not be do mistake on the job too.
Training is another important solution. A certificated should be given for each of the
training. Besides that, these training should be given time by time to ensure every workers
does not make any mistake.

4.0 CONCLUSION

Every step from the chip fabrication to the end product must be done in a control
environment. This is to prevent the contamination on the chip. There are many other ways to
prevent the contamination from occur such as housekeeping, training and fix the facilities.
This contamination may cause the failure to the product. Then the yield of the end product
will be lower when there are too much of the defects. Hence, the defects such as
contamination must be avoided on the die.

5.0 REFERENCE

[1]

H. Geng and L. Zhou, HOW SEMICONDUCTOR CHIPS ARE MADE.

[2]

Contamination | Define Contamination at Dictionary.com. [Online]. Available:

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/contamination.

[3]

J.-L. Baltzinger and D. Bruno, Contamination monitoring and analysis in

semiconductor manufacturing 57 x Contamination monitoring and analysis in
semiconductor manufacturing.

[4]

M. K. L. Kohli Rajiv, 6.1.1 Particulate Contamination Effects in Microelectronic

Manufacturing, Developments in Surface Contamination and Cleaning - Particle
Deposition, Control and Removal. William Andrew Publishing, 2010.

[5]

B. Sood, Root-Cause Failure Analysis of Electronics, 2013.

[6]

Scotten W.Jones, Introduction to Integrated Circuit, IC Knowl. LLC, vol. Fourth Edi,
pp. 121, 1950.

[7]

R. Zorich, Handbook of Quality Integrated Circuit Manufacturing. Elsevier Science,

2012.

[8]

Industrial Ventilation. .