Semiconductor Reliability and Quality Assurance--Failure Mode, Mechanism and Analysis (FMMEA)

Abhishek Gupta & Ashish Kumar
EDN (April 20, 2014)

Failure Mode, Mechanism and Effect Analysis (FMMEA) is a reliability analysis method which is used to study possible failure modes, failure mechanisms of each component, and to identify the effects of various failure modes on the components and functions. This article introduces how to implement FMMEA in detail, including system definition, identification of potential failure modes, analysis of failure cause, failure mechanism, and failure effect analysis. Finite element analysis is carried out, including thermal stress analysis and vibration stress analysis on a semiconductor device. Temperature distribution and vibration modes are obtained, which are the inputs of physics of failure models.

Using a variety of Physics of Failure models, the quantitative calculation of single point failure for the Semiconductor Device are carried out. Results showed that the time to failure (TTF) of random access memory chip which is SOP (small outline package) is the shortest and the failure is due to solder joint fatigue failure caused by the temperature cycle. It is the weak point of the entire circuit board. Thus solder joint thermal fatigue failure is the main failure mechanism of the semiconductor device.

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