Cu Wirebond Technology in 16FFC High Performance Automotive Radar Processor with IR Drop Reduction Methodology

High performance automotive radar front-end processors normally use advanced semiconductor packaging such as Flip Chip, fan-in and fan-out wafer level Ball Grid Array (BGA) packages in order to provide superior performance in their applications. However, for a cost-effective package in the competitive business market, wirebonded package can also provide similar uncompromised performance. Advanced Cu wirebond technology was evaluated on the 16FFc radar processor. However, the challenge of high voltage drop, also known as IR drop, in 16FFc technology must be overcome. As wafer technology moves to smaller advanced nodes, the back-end-of-line (BEOL) metal thickness gets thinner, thus increasing the resistance per unit length. Another trend in semiconductor design has been a reduction in operating voltage, meaning that small changes in supply voltage may represent an increasing percentage of the digital swing and potentially lead to incorrect logic values. As current flows through a resistor, the high voltage drop could slow down the circuitry, impact the circuit timing and lead to functional failure. In order to reduce the IR drop in the radar processor when using Cu wirebond, a large quantity of intra-die wires was applied on the 16FFc silicon. IR drop simulation was performed on three layout conditions, 0%, 50% and 100% of the intra-die wires. Empirical data was also collected with actual Cu wirebonded samples. The fully populated intra-die wires reduced IR drop by 28%. To enable the reliable performance of the intra-die wires, Stand-off Stitch Bond (SSB) wirebond technology was introduced within the package. The development and reliability evaluation were conducted for Cu wirebonding on 16FFc automotive radar processor of 30mm² die size in a 14mm x 14mm 2-layer substrate BGA package. Wirebond recipe was developed based on detailed Design of Experiment to establish bonding parameters for both standard wires and the intra-die wires. Packages were tested per AEC Grade 1 and AEC Q006 qualifications requirements. All results from package reliability assessments passed with no abnormality. Board level temperature cycling reliability for the BGA package with the four depopulated corner solder balls was evaluated with results surpassing our internal requirement for AEC Grade 1. This paper will present the results and analysis from (1) IR drop simulation and empirical data collection, (2) wirebond development and reliability of standard and intra-die wires on 16FFc Silicon, and (3) board level reliability of a BGA package with four depopulated corner solder balls.