A Comprehensive Experimental and Finite Element Analysis Study on the Bonding Strength Evaluation of Wafer-to-Wafer Hybrid Bonding with Polyimide Film Dielectrics

Polymer insulation layers such as polyimide (PI) have gradually replaced inorganic dielectric layers (SiO2, SiCN) in the integrated packaging process of hybrid bonding (HB). PI can fill the gaps in the thermal compression bonding process and help to obtain a good Cu/Polymer bonding interface. At present, the existing post-crack double cantilever beam tensile test (PBC-DCB) has been successfully applied to the quantitative measurement of bonding strength of hybrid bonding with inorganic materials, but this method only considers elastic behavior. Since PI exhibits viscidity, elasticity and plasticity, knowing how to correlate these properties to the bonding process is challenging. Whether PBC-DCB is suitable for the characterization of PI bonding is unclear. This paper presents a comprehensive experimental and finite element analysis (FEA) study on the PI–PI bonding interface. Firstly, nanoindentation experiments and simulations are performed on the prepared PI interface to obtain key elasticity and plasticity parameters. Then, the bonding strength is characterized by the PBC-DCB test. Theoretical and experimental results show that the plasticity of PI causes energy dissipation during stretching, resulting in a deviation of approximately 2.51% compared with pure elasticity. Based on experimental data, the Cohesive Zone Model (CZM) FEA method is used to simulate the crack propagation. The results indicate that the Embedded Process Zone (EPZ) model can accurately describe crack initiation and delamination behavior, with a margin of error of about 3.61%. Finally, based on the EPZ CZM, defects such as bonding void and wafer warpage are further discussed in relation to bonding strength measurement.