Intermetallic Bonding for High-Temperature Microelectronics and Microsystems: Solid-Liquid Interdiffusion Bonding

Solid-liquid interdiffusion (SLID) bonding for microelectronics and microsystems is a bonding technique relying on intermetallics. The high-melting temperature of intermetallics allows for system operation at far higher temperatures than what solder-bonded systems can do, while still using similar process temperatures as in common solder processes. Additional benefits of SLID bonding are possibilities of fine-pitch bonding, as well as thin-layer metallurgical bonding. Our group has worked on a number of SLID metal systems. We have optimized wafer-level Cu-Sn SLID bonding to become an industrially feasible process, and we have verified the reliability of Au-Sn SLID bonding in a thermally mismatched system, as well as determined the actual phases present in an Au-Sn SLID bond. We have demonstrated SLID bonding for very high temperatures (Ni-Sn, having intermetallics with melting points up to 1280°C), as well as SLID with low process temperatures (Au-In, processed at 180°C, and Au-In-Bi, processed at 90–115°C). We have verified experimentally the high-temperature stability for our systems, with quantified strength at temperatures up to 300°C for three of the systems: Cu-Sn, Au-Sn and Au-In