Stencil printing behavior of lead-free Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu solder paste for wafer level bumping for Sub-100 μm size solder bumps

Stencil printing for flip chip packaging using fine particle solder pastes is a low cost assembly solution with high throughput for fine pitch solder joint interconnects. The manufacturing challenges associated with both solder paste printing increases as electronic device size decreases due to trend of miniaturization in electronic components. Among multiple parameters, the two most important stencil printing parameters are squeegee pressure and printing speed. In this paper, the printing behavior of Pb free Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu solder paste with a particle size distribution of 2–12 μm for wafer level bumping using a stencil printing method (stencil opening dimension −30 μm) was evaluated by varying the printing speed and squeegee pressure to fabricate solder bumps with a sub 100 μm size. The optimal squeegee pressure and print speed for the defect free printing behavior and fairly uniform size distribution of reflowed paste were found to be 7 kgf and 20 mm/s, respectively. The average size of the reflowed printed paste decreased with the increasing squeegee pressure.