Plastic IC Package Failures That Lead Engineers to Hermetic Cavities
Introduction: Plastic package failures under humidity and thermal cycling follow a chain from moisture uptake to electrical drift, which is what makes hermetic cavity redesign a reasoned option rather than a guess. A failed plastic part usually gets described in one word: contamination, a bad lot, a cracked joint. That framing hides the sequence that actually produced the failure and makes the next design decision feel arbitrary. Moisture enters epoxy mould compound long before a part ever reaches a test bench, and heat turns that stored water into pressure, chemistry, and interface stress. By the time a module shows drift on the bench, several physical steps have already happened. Following them in order is the practical way to judge whether the answer is a process change, a different plastic, or a cavity sealed with metal and ceramic. How Moisture and Heat Begin the Plastic Package Failure Chain Epoxy mould compound is often pictured as a solid wall around the die. It is a polymer,...