Large-area Nanosilver Die-attach by Hot-pressing Below 200°C and 5 MPa

Sintered nanoscale silver joint is an emerging lead-free die-attach solution for high-temperature packaging because of silver's high melting temperature. For bonding small chips, the nanosilver solution can be achieved with a simple heating profile under atmospheric pressure. However, for bonding large-area chips, e.g. > 1 cm2 IGBT chips, uniaxial pressure of a few MPa has been found necessary during the sintering stage of the bonding process, which is carried out at temperatures below 275°C. Hot-pressing at high temperatures can cause significant wear and tear on the processing equipment, resulting in high maintenance cost. In this study, we ran a series of experiments aimed at lowering the hot-pressing temperature. Specifically, we examined a process involving hot-press drying, followed by sintering without any applied pressure. A fractional factorial design of experiments was used to identify the importance and interaction of various processing parameters, such as hot-pressing pressure/temperature/time and sintering temperature/time, on the final bond quality of sintered nanosilver joints. Based on the results, a simpler process, consisting of hot-press drying at 180°C under 3 MPa, followed by sintering at 275°C under atmospheric pressure was found to produce attachments with die-shear strength in excess of 30 MPa.