Solution for improving manufacturing yield and reliability of package-on-package (PoP)

The package-on-package (PoP) as one of the 3D packaging solutions has been rapidly used in portable products due to its flexibility and testability, but the PoP packaging industry encounters more manufacturability and reliability related issues during new PoP development. To solve the issues, the methodologies of design for manufacturability (DFM) and design for reliability (DFR) are widely used in the PoP design stage. In order to further reduce the R&D cost and achieve the fast time-to-market, a design tool named Design Advisor for PoP manufacturing and testing has been developed and demonstrated. The key components of the Design Advisor include numerical models, materials library, design guidelines, testing standards and novel finite element analysis (FEA) techniques. With the developed novel FEA techniques for seamless packaging process simulation and moisture & vapor pressure simulation, complete numerical models for PoP manufacturing and testing were developed and validated to simulate the key PoP manufacturing processes and reliability tests. The Design Advisor is easy to use by selecting package geometries, material properties and process/testing parameters. After the parameters are all input, the Design Advisor can provide user a detailed analysis report including simulation results, design evaluations and recommendations. The Design Advisor has been proved to be an effective solution for not only improving the manufacturing yield of PoP module but also the related reliability test performance.