Estudo da viabilidade técnica e econômica da substituição de fios de ouro por fios de cobre em memórias DRAM

Abstract

This study evaluates the proposal of gold wire for copper wire replacement in the wire bonding process used in DRAM DDR3 memory packaging in Brazil. The technical feasibility of applying this technology to the component has been verifyed in practice on a Korean company, with the production of samples and the examination of quality characteristics, such as bond pull force and bond shear strenght, intermetallic compound and bonding pad structure. After parameters optimization of the first bond by DOE, it was possible to obtain results within process specifications and similar to those obtained with the gold wire. After confirming the technical feasibility, the economic viability of this project was verified by calculating the cost of implementation and the necessary time to recover the investment, through the simple and discounted payback methods. Because of the need of purchasing costly wire bonding machines, the discounted payback resulted in six years and eleven months, which represents a high risk investment, considering the semiconductor market dynamism and the imminent replacement of BOC package by flip chip technology.