The present invention relates to a semiconductor package including a recessed portion for housing a semiconductor element and side electrodes for soldering, and the implementation structure thereof.
As a conventional semiconductor package, for example, there is a package implemented on a motherboard by arranging external connection leads on the outer side surfaces of the package wiring board and soldering these wires to the electrode mounted on the motherboard, such as a small outline package (SOP) and a quad flat package (QFP), (Patent Literature 1 and Non Patent Literature 1, for example). Such semiconductor packages, however, are easy to observe the soldered portion but require a large area to implement on the motherboard.
For this reason, there is a conventional semiconductor package that is easy to observe the soldered portion and requires a small area to implement on the motherboard by integrally forming an electrode (hereinafter, “side electrode”) on the outer side surface and the bottom surface (surfaces for implementing on the motherboard) of the package wiring board (Patent Literature 2, for example). Such a semiconductor package is implemented on the motherboard, with solder being spread and solderable between the side electrode arranged on the package wiring board and the electrode arranged on the motherboard.
The conventional package wiring board including the side electrodes has a ceramic multilayered structure with a recessed portion therein for housing a semiconductor element. Then, the recessed portion of this package wiring board is prepared by forming an opening in at least one of multiple ceramic green sheets, and then laminating the ceramic green sheets and burning them at a high temperature. At this point, the thermal expansion coefficient of the package wiring board in the planar direction is approximately 7×10−6 1/K. Here, the “planar direction” represents the direction parallel to the implementation surface of the package wiring board. On the other hand, if the motherboard is a generally used glass epoxy print wiring board, its thermal expansion coefficient in the planar direction is approximately 16×10−6 1/K. Thus, because there is a large difference between the thermal expansion coefficients of the two in the planar direction, large distortion occurs in the soldered portion between the package wiring board and the motherboard in an environment in which rise and fall of temperature are repeated, which tends to produce cracks.
Patent Literature 2 discloses a soldering technology in which solder paste that contains spacers is employed for soldering to improve the soldering strength between the package wiring board and the motherboard and enhance the soldering reliability.
With the soldering method according to Patent Literature 2, however, the solder paste that contains spacers is adopted, and therefore a sufficient adhesion strength cannot be attained because of the soldering area that is reduced in accordance with the downsizing of the semiconductor package, as a result of which cracks are still produced in the soldered portion.
The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object is to improve the soldering reliability of a semiconductor package that includes a recessed portion for housing a semiconductor element and side electrodes for soldering.
A semiconductor package according to the present invention includes: a package wiring board which has an element housing recessed portion on a top surface thereof for housing a semiconductor element; a plurality of side electrodes which are arranged on outer side surfaces of the package wiring board and soldered to a plurality of motherboard electrodes arranged on a motherboard; a semiconductor element which is fixed onto a bottom surface of the element housing recessed portion; and an element electrode arranged on the bottom surface of the element housing recessed portion and electrically connected to the semiconductor element and the side electrodes, wherein the package wiring board has a multilayered structure in which woven fabric and a resin adhesive layer are alternately laminated; and the resin adhesive layer is formed of a resin adhesive that contains inorganic filler particles.
Furthermore, a semiconductor package implementation structure according to the present invention includes: the semiconductor package according to any one of claims 1 to 6; a motherboard on which the semiconductor package is mounted; a plurality of motherboard electrodes which are arranged on a surface of the motherboard and attached to the side electrodes by use of solder, wherein the side electrodes and the motherboard electrodes are arranged such that a surface extending from the side electrodes crosses the motherboard electrodes; and the solder is spread and becomes solderable between top surfaces of the motherboard electrodes and the side electrodes.
According to the present invention, a package wiring board has a multilayered structure in which woven fabric and resin adhesive layers are alternately laminated, and the resin adhesive layers contain inorganic filler particles. Hence, crack occurrence is suppressed in the soldered portion in an environment where rise and fall of temperature are repeated, and thereby the soldering reliability can be improved.
The first embodiment of the present invention is explained with reference to
As shown in
On a pair of opposing outer side surfaces of the wiring board 2, electrode recessed portions 2b are formed into semicircular columns extending from the bottom surface to the vicinity of the top surface. The electrode recessed portions 2b are designed to cut through the bottom surface of the wiring board 2 but not the top surface thereof. The electrode recessed portions 2b, however, may be designed to cut through the bottom and top surfaces of the wiring board 2. Furthermore, as for the arrangement of the side electrodes 7 onto the wiring board 2, as shown in
The side electrode 7 includes a side portion 7a arranged on the each electrode recessed portion 2b of the wiring board 2 and 7b arranged on the bottom surface of the portion wiring board 2. Then, the side electrode 7 is combined with the wiring board 2 by coating the outer circumferential surface of the wiring board 2 with copper-nickel-gold plating. In this manner, because the side electrode 7 includes the bottom portion 7b, the side electrode 7 is prevented from coming off of the wiring board 2. In addition, the side electrode 7 is electrically connected to the element electrode 5 by way of the internal wiring of the wiring board 2.
The motherboard 10 on which the semiconductor package 1 is mounted is a glass epoxy print wiring board. On the surface of the motherboard 10, a plurality of motherboard electrodes 8 that are corresponding to the multiple side electrodes 7 are arranged. The semiconductor package 1 is electrically and mechanically connected to the motherboard 10 by soldering between these side electrodes 7 and the motherboard electrodes 8. Lead-free soldering is a preferable material of the solder 9, such as Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu and SnAg.
The side electrode 7 and the motherboard electrode 8 are arranged so as to cross the surface extending from the side portion 7a of the side electrode 7 (dotted line in
The structure of the wiring board 2 is explained in detail with reference to
Unlike a recessed portion in the conventional wiring board having a ceramic multilayered structure, the element housing recessed portion 2a of the wiring board 2 is formed by preparing a wiring board in advance to have a multilayered structure in which the woven fabric 21 and the resin adhesive layer 22 are alternately laminated, and then cutting off the surface (top surface) opposite of the mounting surface (bottom surface). In this manner, the resin adhesive of the resin adhesive layers 22 is prevented from flowing into the inside of the element housing recessed portion 2a, which tends to occur when forming a recessed portion during the deposition of layers.
The resin adhesive layer 22 include inorganic filler particles. As the material of the inorganic filler particles, any inorganic substance with a low thermal expansion coefficient can be adopted, examples of which include silica (SiO2) particles and ceramic particles. Especially because of their low cost and ease of processing into a desired size, silica particles serve as the most suitable material.
The inventors of the present invention have determined the suitable range of the inorganic filler particle content in the following manner. Hereinafter, this is explained with reference to
The plotted points of
For the “thermal expansion coefficient of the wiring board 2 in the direction of lamination” of
The inventors of the present invention conducted a test of repeating the temperature cycle of 125 to −40 degrees Celsius, with the thermal expansion coefficient of the wiring board 2 in the direction of lamination being set approximately to 60×10−6 1/K. In this test, glass woven fabric was used for the material of the woven fabric 21 of the wiring board 2, an epoxy resin was used for the material of the resin adhesive of the resin adhesive layer 22, and the silica particle content in the resin adhesive layer 22 was set to 0 weight percent. Further, the side electrode 7 was coated with copper-nickel-gold plating, Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu was adopted for the material of the solder 9, and a glass epoxy print wiring board was adopted for the motherboard 10. As a result of this test, after approximately 300 temperature cycles, a crack was caused in the solder 9 in the vicinity of the lower part of the side portion 7a of the side electrode 7. As can be seen from the result of the test, a sufficient soldering reliability cannot be attained, even when the wiring board 2 is formed of the same material as that of the motherboard 10 (glass epoxy of 0 weight-percent silica particle content) to bring its thermal expansion coefficient in the planar direction in agreement with that of the motherboard 10.
In contrast, a similar temperature cycle test was conducted with the thermal expansion coefficient of the wiring board 2 in the direction of lamination being set approximately to 28×10−6 1/K. Here, the silica particle content of the resin adhesive layer 22 was determined approximately as 55 weight percent. As a result of this test, no crack was caused in the solder 9 after 1000 temperature cycles. As can be seen from
The silica particle content that is required when the thermal expansion coefficient of the wiring board 2 in the direction of lamination approximately should be set in the range of 15×10−6 and 40×10−6 1/K can be determined in accordance with the graph of
As can be seen from
In the above explanation of the present embodiment, the side electrode 7 includes the bottom portion 7b, but it is sufficient that the side electrode 7 is provided at least with the side portion 7a. When the side electrode 7 has the side portion 7a only, the semiconductor package 1 is mounted on the top surface of the motherboard 10 such that the end portions of the side electrodes 7 that extend to the bottom surface of the wiring board 2 are brought into contact with the motherboard electrodes 8, as illustrated in
In addition, according to the present embodiment, the woven fabric 21 of the wiring board 2, the resin adhesive of the resin adhesive layer 22, and the inorganic filler particles of the resin adhesive layer 22 each have layers that are formed of a single material to have the same content thereof, but different layers may have different materials as long as they can solve the problems of the present invention.
Still further, according to the present embodiment, the electrode recessed portions 2b are formed in the outer side surface of the wiring board 2, and the side portions 7a of the side electrodes 7 are arranged on the inner surfaces of the electrode recessed portions 2b, but as illustrated in
According to the present embodiment, the resin adhesive layers 22 of the wiring board 2 contain inorganic filler particles, and thereby the thermal expansion coefficient of the wiring board 2 in the direction of lamination (z axis direction) can be adjusted. In this manner, strain that tends to appear in the solder 9 in the vicinity of the side portions 7a of the side electrodes 7 can be reduced. Hence, cracks can be prevented from occurring in the soldered portion in an environment in which rise and drop of temperature is repeated.
The second embodiment of the present invention is explained with reference to
A side electrode 7 and a motherboard electrode 8 are arranged so as to cross a surface extending from the side portion 7a of the side electrode 7 (dotted line in
Hence, when soldering is performed between the side electrodes 7 and the motherboard electrodes 8, a solder 39 spreads out and becomes solderable between the top and inner end surfaces of the motherboard electrodes 8 and the bottom portions 7b and the side portions 7a of the side electrodes 7, and it extrudes into a convex shape toward the center of the wiring board 2 under a surface tension of the solder 9.
According to the present embodiment, in addition to the advantageous effects of the first embodiment, the solder 39 spreads to the inner end surfaces of the motherboard electrodes 8 and becomes solderable there, and it extrudes into a convex shape toward the center of the wiring board 2 under the surface tension of the solder 9 so that the soldering area can be increased. As a result, the strain in the solder 39 can be reduced. Thus, cracks can be prevented from occurring in the soldered portion in an environment in which rise and fall of temperature are repeated.
The third embodiment of the present invention is explained with reference to
A semiconductor package 41 includes a wiring board 42, the semiconductor element 3, element electrodes 45, and the side electrodes 7. In a similar manner to the wiring board 2 according to the first embodiment, the wiring board 42 is internally wired by a not-shown conductive body, and it is formed by alternately laminating the woven fabric and resin adhesive layer that contains inorganic filler particles. Furthermore, the wiring board 42 includes an element housing recessed portion 42a in its top surface to house the semiconductor element 3, and it also includes multiple electrode recessed portions 42b on a pair of outer side surfaces that oppose each other to extend from the bottom surface to the vicinity of the top surface.
A step portion 42c is formed on an inner side surface 42a—SIDE of the element housing recessed portion 42a. In other words, the horizontal cross-sectional area of the element housing recessed portion 42a below the step portion 42c is smaller than the horizontal cross-sectional area above the step portion 42c. The semiconductor element 3 is fixed to a bottom surface 42a—BASE of the element housing recessed portion 42a with the adhesive 6, and the element electrode 45 is arranged on the top surface of the step portion 42c. The step portion 42c is provided approximately at the same height as the top surface of the semiconductor element 3. Then, the semiconductor element 3 and the element electrode 45 are electrically connected to each other by way of a wire 44, and the element electrode 45 and the side electrodes 7 are electrically connected to each other by the inner wiring of the wiring board 42.
According to the present embodiment, in addition to the advantageous effects of the first embodiment, by providing the step portion 42c on the inner side surface 42a—SIDE of the element housing recessed portion 42a, the cross-sectional area of the lower corner portion of the wiring board 42 in the planar direction can be increased. As a result, the wiring board 42 can be prevented from being deformed, and the strain in the solder 9 can be reduced. Thus, cracks can be prevented from occurring in the soldered portion in an environment in which rise and fall of temperature are repeated. In addition, by arranging the step portion 42c approximately at the same height as the top surface of the semiconductor element 3, the length of the wire 44 that connects the semiconductor element 3 to the element electrode 45 can be reduced. In this manner, noise can be suppressed.
The fourth embodiment of the present invention is explained with reference to
A cover 50 is fixed onto the top surface of the wiring board 2 to cover the opening of the element housing recessed portion 2a. The cover 50 has a rectangular outer shape that is larger than the opening of the element housing recessed portion 2a, and is fixed by a fixing unit 51 that is arranged on the top surface of the wiring board 2 so that the entire opening of the element housing recessed portion 2a can be covered. The cover 50 serves to suppress the deformation of the top portion of the wiring board 2, and plastic or glass may be adopted as the material of the cover 50. As the material of the fixing unit 51, a thermoset resin such as an epoxy resin, an ultraviolet curable resin, a thermoplastic resin, and solder may be adopted.
Furthermore, the shape, area, and arrangement of the cover 50 are not limited to the above, as long as the deformation of the top portion of the wiring board 2 can be suppressed. For example, it may be formed into a bar shape that has a width, when viewed from above, being greater than the width of the opening of the element housing recessed portion 2a and a length being smaller than the length of the element housing recessed portion 2a. In addition, shapes may be formed in the wiring board 2 and the cover 50 to be engaged with each other so that the cover 50 may be fixed directly to the wiring board 2, instead of fixing with the fixing unit 51.
According to the present embodiment, in addition to the advantageous effects of the first embodiment, by arranging the cover 50 that is fixed onto the top surface of the wiring board 2 to partially or entirely cover the opening of the element housing recessed portion 2a, deformation of the top portion of the wiring board 2 can be suppressed, and the strain in the solder 9 can be reduced. Hence, cracks can be prevented from appearing in the soldered portion in an environment in which rise and fall of the temperature are repeated. Moreover, the entire opening is covered to hermetically seal the element housing recessed portion 2a with the cover 50 so that dust is prevented from entering the element housing recessed portion 2a.
The fifth embodiment of the present invention is explained with reference to
The element housing recessed portion 2a of the wiring board 2 in which the semiconductor element 3 is housed is filled with a resin 60. The resin 60 serves to fix the wiring board 2 and suppress the deformation. As the material of the resin 60, silicon gel or silicon rubber may be adopted. In addition, the resin 60 may be provided only in the vicinity of the boundary between the bottom surface 2a—BASE and an inner side surface 2a—SIDE of the element housing recessed portion 2a to suppress the deformation of the lower portion of the wiring board 2.
According to the present embodiment, in addition to the advantageous effects of the first embodiment, the element housing recessed portion 2a is partially or entirely filled with the resin 60 so that the deformation of at least the lower portion of the wiring board 2 can be suppressed, and the strain in the solder 9 can be reduced. Hence, cracks can be prevented from occurring in the soldered portion in an environment in which rise and fall of temperature are repeated. In addition, because the element housing recessed portion 2a is hermetically sealed with the resin 60, dust is prevented from entering the element housing recessed portion 2a.
The sixth embodiment of the present invention is explained with reference to
An optical semiconductor module 70 includes an optical semiconductor package 71 and multiple electronic parts 72 on the motherboard 10. The electronic parts 72 are mounted on the surface of the motherboard 10 on which the optical semiconductor package 71 is mounted and the other surface thereof by soldering. The optical semiconductor package 71 incorporates an emitting semiconductor element as the semiconductor element 3 of the semiconductor package 1, and a lens 73 is positioned on the top surface of the wiring board 2.
The lens 73 includes a board portion 73a that has a horizontal cross-sectional area larger than the horizontal area of the opening of the element housing recessed portion 2a and is mounted on the top surface of the wiring board 2 so as to cover the opening of the element housing recessed portion 2a; and a convex portion 73b arranged at the position opposite of the semiconductor element 3 on a surface of the board portion 73a opposite of the surface that is in contact with the wiring board 2. The surface of the convex portion 73b that is in contact with the board portion 73a is circular and rises outward approximately in a hemisphere shape. The shape of the lens 73 is not limited thereto, however. The light emitted from the semiconductor element 3 passes through the lens 73 to the outside.
According to the present embodiment, in addition to the advantageous effects of the first embodiment, the distance between the lens 73 and the semiconductor element 3 can be prevented from varying. Hence, a high-quality optical semiconductor module that has a stable light emission property can be achieved.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP2009/002813 | 6/22/2009 | WO | 00 | 12/21/2011 |