Determination of the Equivalent Thickness of a Taiko Wafer Using ANSYS Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

The successful handling of large semiconductor wafers is crucial for scaling up their production. Early-stage warpage control allows the prevention of undesirable asymmetric warpage, known as wafer bifurcation or buckling. Indeed, even in a gravity-free environment, thinning an 8″ or 12″ semiconductor wafer can result in warpage and bifurcation. To mitigate this issue, the taiko method, which involves creating a thicker ring region around the rim of the wafer, has been widely used. Previous research has focused on the theoretical factors affecting the warpage of a backside metalized taiko wafer. This work extends the case to a front-side metalized taiko wafer and introduces the concept of the equivalent thickness of a taiko wafer. The equivalent thickness of a taiko wafer, influenced by the ring region, lies in between the thickness of the central region and that of the annular region. Because of the limited number of taiko wafers that can be produced on a production line, modelling can be beneficial. In this work we compared the results of a developed analytical model with those obtained from a finite element analysis (FEA) approach with ANSYSY® Mechanical Enterprise 2022/R2 software to model the equivalent thickness of a taiko wafer. We investigated the curvature as a function of the stress of the metal layer, considering key design factors such as the substrate region thickness, the thickness of the thin metal film, the step height, and the width of the ring region. By systematically varying the thickness of the central region of the taiko wafer, we explored the curvature as a function of stress induced by thermal load in the linear regime and determined the slopes in the linear region of the curvature vs. stress curves. The aim of this study is to identify regularities and similarities with the Stoney equation and investigate the validity of the analytical approach for the case of a taiko substrate. The results show that there is a good agreement between the analytical model of a taiko wafer and the numerical analysis gained by the FEA methods.

Keywords

• taiko wafers
• finite elements analysis (FEA)
• ANSYS
• thermomechanical simulations
• warpage
• modelling