Abstract
Corrosion has recently become a more significant factor in the reliability of electronic components, because of design requirement of higher device density and faster signal processing and expanding application areas, thus resulting in smaller devices with ever finer feature sizes and exposure to more severe uncontrolled environment. In attaining a successful corrosion preventive and controlling design of electronic components, a unique set of considerations is required for each category of corrosion factors such as environments, materials and structural configurations including packaging.
This review addresses to elucidate common characteristics of corrosion damages of electronic components and to afford perspectives for prevention measures from the above three categories. Given the susceptibility of most electronic materials to corrosive attack and the functional sensitivity of most electronic structures to corrosion, some degree of isolation of the structure from the environment by the use of protective or passivity films and by packaging is required. It is emphasized that the true corrosion prevention can only be achieved with thorough considerations for materials, environments, and structural configurations.
