Gold-germanium laser jetting for high temperature (300°C) flip chip application

Abstract

For downhole drilling applications, packages will have to endure extremely harsh conditions, which can easily reach a temperature of 300°C. At such high temperatures, the commonly adopted solder materials are lead-based as they are more readily available in paste and solder ball forms. While multiple studies have been performed on eutectic gold-germanium solder and its reliability at high temperature, little work has been done on the processing and assembly of the material into a flip chip package. This paper aims to study the feasibility of gold-germanium solder assembly through laser jetting process optimization. It is observed that Ge phase coarsening does not occur with laser jetting, compare to reflow process.