Grinding decapsulation method application in failure analysis of plastic encapsulated devices

Grinding as one of the most important mechanical decapsulation methods is always used in plastic encapsulated devices failure analysis (FA). It has advantages in protecting failure site as compared to traditional chemical decapsulation methods, especially for some failure mechanisms such as silver electrochemical migration, metal corrosion, ionic contaminant, solder balls bridging, poor bonding, etc. In this paper, the key steps and some notes of grinding decapsulation methods(GDM) are presented, as well as cases of three failure mechanisms using grinding method are introduced in detail for revealing its necessity. Meanwhile the application area is discussed. The fundament for further choice of decapsulation was established.