Fundamental Insights into Copper-Epoxy Interfaces for High-Frequency Chip-to-Chip Interconnects

Abstract

Future processes and materials are needed to enable multichip packages with chip-to-chip (C2C) data rates of 50 GB/s or higher. This presents a fundamental challenge because of the skin effect, which exacerbates signal transmission losses at high frequencies. Our results indicate that smooth copper interconnects with relatively thin cuprous oxides (Cu₂O, Cu^I) and amine-functional silane adhesion promoters improve interfacial adhesion with epoxy dielectrics by nearly an order of magnitude. For the first time, we present X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy evidence of Cu(I)–O–Si bond formation at silane-treated interfaces. Thus, relatively smooth interconnects can benefit from reduced skin losses while maintaining their mechanical integrity and reliability. Failure mechanisms of Cu interconnects with cuprous and cupric oxide (CuO, Cu^II) are explored using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). These results indicate that both cupric oxides and relatively thick cuprous oxide interfaces lead to relatively weaker interfaces compared with thin cuprous oxides with adhesion promoters.