Virtual qualification methodologies for microelectronic packaging

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The principal objective of the proposed research project is to demonstrate a complete virtual qualification (VQ) platform applied to the complex engineering problems encountered during the development and manufacturing of advanced microelectronic components at IBM (the industrial partner). The term "virtual qualification" here specifically means the process by which all relevant failure mechanisms and manufacturing defects are simulated numerically, in order to compute a probability of failure for a new technology, process or design. The most important element of novelty in the proposed research is the completeness of the VQ process to be developed, in the sense that it has sufficient breadth and quantitatively demonstrated credibility to be used on a regular basis by the industrial partner to replace expensive hardware-based experimental validations of new technologies by highly-efficient VQ. The proposed research project will develop both the new methodologies to implement VQ at IBM, as well as the full library of advanced numerical models used to simulate the thermal and mechanical loads on microelectronic components. The success of the project will be measured in terms of gains in competitiveness for our industrial partner, for instance in terms of reduced time-to-market or lower development costs. While some of the VQ tools will be developed specifically for the microelectronic components built by IBM, most of the methodologies and software to be created in this research project will be broadly applicable to other fields where complex numerical simulations are used to validate critical design choices.