Pulsed Infrared Thermography Failure Analysis of Low-emissivity Specimens Without Contaminations Caused by High-emissivity Coatings

Pulsed Infrared Thermography (PIRT) is a very fast and non-destructive technique for testing various types of specimens. This makes PIRT interesting for inspections in industrial production lines. Especially for the thermal interface inspection of sintered and soldered electronic components the industry is looking for alternatives to cost extensive x-ray methods and the time-consuming scanning acoustic microscopy (apart from the need of water as coupling medium). In inspections of solder and sinter interconnections the surface areas, in general dies, consist of low-emissivity materials such as silicon or metallization. Conventionally, such samples need to be spray coated by e.g. graphite coatings for thermography techniques which would be time-consuming and would contaminate the electronic components. This work will present a PIRT system with an integrated technique to perform reliable component inspections on low-emissivity specimens without contaminations and the need of high-emissivity coatings.