A coordinated effort led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to address polymer performance gaps in advanced semiconductor packaging carries direct implications for the automotive sector, where sensor housings, engine control units (ECUs), and adjacent electronics must survive increasingly demanding thermal, mechanical, and chemical environments.
Background
NIST researchers, together with scientists from North Carolina State University, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Intel, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), and Binghamton University, published a perspective paper in IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology in August 2025, identifying critical shortfalls in how the industry characterizes and qualifies polymer-based packaging materials. The paper, titled "Material Needs and Measurement Challenges for Advanced Semiconductor Packaging: Understanding the Soft Side of Science," built upon findings from a NIST-organized workshop held at the 35th annual Electronics Packaging Symposium in Binghamton, New York, on September 5, 2024.
The automotive context amplifies these concerns. Polymer encapsulants-including epoxy molding compounds (EMCs), silicones, polyimides, and underfill resins-now account for over 99% of the electronic packaging market, having displaced hermetic ceramic and metal housings over the past three decades. In automotive applications, these materials must reliably protect semiconductors over service lives of 10 to 15 years while withstanding thermal excursions, vibration, and exposure to automotive fluids.
Existing qualification frameworks, including AEC-Q100 for integrated circuits and ISO 16750 for electrical and electronic components, mandate stress testing regimes subjecting devices to thermal cycling between -40°C and 125°C, vibration testing at frequencies up to 200 Hz, and humidity exposure protocols. AEC-Q100 Grade 0 qualification requires 2,000 temperature cycles and 1,000 hours of high-temperature operating life testing-standards reflecting the severity of under-hood and chassis-mounted deployments. Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and zone-based electrical architectures in both conventional and battery electric vehicles add further complexity, concentrating processing loads into fewer, higher-power packaging configurations.
Details
The NIST-led framework identifies a structural disconnect between polymer science knowledge and its application in semiconductor packaging engineering. According to lead author Ran Tao, "Polymer science is fascinating to polymer scientists, but that fundamental knowledge is often lacking in the packaging world". The paper highlights that unlike metals or ceramics, polymers are time- and temperature-sensitive, absorbing moisture and changing shape under stress-behaviors that can cause chips to warp, signals to degrade, or connections to fail.
For automotive electronics, the failure mechanisms are well-documented but inadequately standardized at the materials level. CTE mismatch in polymer-based packaging materials is widely acknowledged as a primary contributor to temperature-induced drift in sensors, while moisture ingress at packaging interfaces can induce plastic deformation, exacerbating nonlinear drift in long-term bias, according to a complementary study published in Frontiers in Materials in July 2025. These degradation modes are particularly acute in MEMS-based inertial and pressure sensors used for vehicle stability and navigation systems.
Central to the NIST approach is the development of Research-Grade Test Materials (RGTMs): open, nonproprietary polymer systems that allow researchers across industry, academia, and government to compare results, improve reproducibility, and feed reliable data into predictive computational models. Co-project leader Christopher Soles noted that shared, transparent materials are essential to accelerating innovation across the full supply chain. The paper's authors, citing long development cycles, warned that some new packaging materials take 10 to 25 years to reach production-making early, collaborative standardization work essential.
On the metrology side, NIST is developing measurement techniques spanning advanced rheology, spectroscopy, and stress measurements to track how polymers cure, shrink, and deform during manufacturing-factors that directly affect device reliability. Co-author William Chen, Chair of the IEEE Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap, stated that "modeling without metrology is imagination", underscoring the dependency of digital twin approaches on verified physical data.
The broader policy context reinforces the urgency. The CHIPS National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program (NAPMP) finalized $1.4 billion in award funding in January 2025 to bolster domestic advanced packaging infrastructure, with materials and substrate research forming a core component of the investment.
Outlook
As the automotive industry transitions toward domain- and zone-based electronic architectures-with higher silicon density per module and tighter form factors-existing polymer qualification protocols will face mounting scrutiny. OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers are reassessing material selection and supplier qualification criteria accordingly. The NIST framework's emphasis on shared material property databases, standardized characterization methods, and open test materials suggests a pathway toward revised qualification benchmarks that could complement or extend existing AEC and ISO standards for automotive electronic packaging polymers. Industry response to the framework's call for open-access characterization data is expected to take shape through ongoing collaboration between the NIST CHIPS team, standards bodies, and semiconductor packaging suppliers active in the automotive market.
