Collaborative Cleaning Process Innovations From Managing Experience and Learning Curves

Moore’s Law infers that the number of transistors on a chip doubles approximately every two years. Consistent with Moore’s Law, high reliability electronic devices build faster processing speed and memory capacity using increasing smaller platforms. The trend toward highly dense assemblies reduces the spacing between conductors while yielding a larger electronic field. As the industry moves to higher functionality, miniaturization, and lead-free soldering, studies show that cleanliness of the assembly becomes more important. Residues under low standoff components, with gaps less than 2 mils, represent an increasingly difficult cleaning challenge. Collaboration from cleaning equipment and cleaning material companies has led to innovations for improving throughput and complete residue removal under low standoff components. The purpose of this paper is to report both mechanical and chemical innovations that open the process window.