Abstract Good adhesion of mold compounds to the die surfaces of plastic encapsulated integrated circuits is an important quality and reliability issue. A comparison was made of mold compound adhesion to the die surface under two new wafer cleaning methods after backgrind detape processes. The normal cleaning procedure was compared to a solvent-based clean and a water-based clean. Split lots were inspected using acoustic micro imaging (AMI) to measure the amount of delamination. Reliability studies were used to characterize the long term effect of the mold compound/die surface delamination.