Adhesive bonding using thick polymer film of SU-8 photoresist for wafer level package

Abstract

For the application to optic devices, wafer level package including spacer with particular thickness according to optical design could be required. In these cases, the uniformity of spacer thickness is important for bonding strength and optical performance. Packaging process has to be performed at low temperature in order to prevent damage to devices fabricated before packaging. And if photosensitive material is used as spacer layer, size and shape of pattern and thickness of spacer can be easily controlled. This paper presents polymer bonding using thick, uniform and patterned spacing layer of SU- 8 2100 photoresist for wafer level package. SU-8, negative photoresist, can be coated uniformly by spin coater and it is cured at 95 oC and bonded well near the temperature. It can be bonded to silicon well, patterned with high aspect ratio and easy to form thick layer due to its high viscosity. It is also mechanically strong, chemically resistive and thermally stable. But adhesion of SU-8 to glass is poor, and in the case of forming thick layer, SU-8 layer leans from the perpendicular due to imbalance to gravity. To solve leaning problem, the wafer rotating system was introduced. Imbalance to gravity of thick layer was cancelled out through rotating wafer during curing time. And depositing additional layer of gold onto glass could improve adhesion strength of SU-8 to glass. Conclusively, we established the coating condition for forming patterned SU-8 layer with 400 μm of thickness and 3.25 % of uniformity through single coating. Also we improved tensile strength from hundreds kPa to maximum 9.43 MPa through depositing gold layer onto glass substrate.