Common causes of chip damage and preventive measures

Date：2024-02-27 17:32:09 Views：1967

In electronic devices, chips are one of the core components, and their performance and stability directly affect the operational effectiveness of the entire system. However, during production and use, chips may be damaged due to various internal and external factors. This article will delve into some common causes of chip damage and propose corresponding prevention and solution measures.

1. Physical damage:

Mechanical stress during manufacturing process: Chips may be subjected to mechanical stress such as collision, drop, or compression during manufacturing, packaging, transportation, or installation, resulting in internal structural damage or fracture.

Thermal stress during welding process: High temperature during welding may cause performance degradation of internal components in chips, uneven melting or cracking of solder balls, leading to poor contact or short circuit problems.

Preventive measures: Strictly adhere to chip operating procedures, improve production automation level to reduce human errors; Adopting appropriate welding temperature curves and optimizing welding processes to reduce the impact of thermal shock on chips.

2. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) damage:

During the processing or assembly process, the release of static electricity energy carried by the human body or tools onto the chip may cause breakdown of sensitive components or damage to the oxide layer, resulting in functional failure.

Preventive measures: Establish a complete ESD protection system, including wearing anti-static wristbands, using anti-static workstations and tools, and ensuring that all operations in contact with chips are carried out in a well grounded environment.

3. Overvoltage/current surge:

Under abnormal working conditions, such as power fluctuations, signal abnormalities, or sudden changes in the external environment, chips may withstand voltage or current exceeding the design limit, leading to internal transistor burnout or other component damage.

Preventive measures: Enhance system level protection design, such as adding protective components such as voltage regulators, transient voltage suppressors (TVS), and current limiting circuits, while considering reasonable margins in application design to cope with extreme situations.

4. Thermal stress damage:

Long term overheating can accelerate the aging of internal materials in chips, affect transistor threshold voltage, and even lead to problems such as metal interconnect layer migration and oxide layer rupture.

Preventive measures: Reasonably design the cooling system to ensure that the chip operates within a safe operating temperature range; Choose packaging forms that are suitable for working conditions to improve heat dissipation efficiency; Regularly maintain equipment, monitor and adjust workloads to avoid prolonged full load operation.

5. Radiation damage:

Radiation environments (such as cosmic rays, nuclear radiation, etc.) can have an impact on semiconductor materials in chips, leading to single particle effects, total dose effects, etc., which can degrade or fail chip performance.

Preventive measures: For specific application scenarios, select specialized chips with radiation resistant reinforcement design; Take shielding measures to reduce the impact of radiation on the chip; Improve system robustness through redundant design, error detection and correction techniques.

In summary, understanding and effectively preventing the common causes of chip damage mentioned above is of great significance for extending the lifespan of chips and ensuring stable equipment operation. Chip manufacturers, system integrators, and end-users should work together to comprehensively improve the reliability and durability of chips from multiple aspects such as design, manufacturing, and use.