Development of the new IC decapsulation technology

An IC is generally decapsulated with wet etching technology. The influences of environment and worker's health in usage and waste of the chemicals are seen as problems. Improvement of processing time is also needed. In order to overcome them, the laser processing technology is applied to IC decapsulation. In this paper, the relationship between processing condition and the processed surface quality is reported to select a suitable laser source. In addition, the new IC decapsulation technology, which is the combination of laser and wet etching, is proposed. To achieve the complex machining, firstly, the method of measuring the reflection light intensity of the laser is proposed to estimate the residual molding thickness. Secondly, the relationship between intensity of reflected laser and mold thickness to IC is shown to construct a mold thickness monitoring system. Finally, processing time and the volume of chemical solution used a process are compared with a conventional wet etching process. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.