Joint Analysis and Reliability Test of Epoxy-Based Nano Silver Paste Under Different Pressure-Less Sintering Processes

Recent years, the sintered silver paste was introduced and further developed for power electronics packaging due to low processing temperature and high working temperature. The pressure-less sintering technology reduces the stress damage caused by the pressure to the chip, improves reliability, and is widely applied in manufacturing. Currently, most existed studies are focused on alcohol-based sintered silver pastes while resins have been demonstrated to improve the bonding properties of solder joints. Hence, the performance and sintering mechanisms with epoxy-based silver paste need to be further explored. In this work, a methodology for multi-factor investigation is settled on the epoxy-based silver paste to reveal the relationship between the strength and the different influence factors. We firstly analyzed the characteristics of commercialized epoxy-based silver paste samples, including silver content, silver particle size, organic paste composition, sample viscosity, and thermal conductivity. Samples were then prepared for shear tests and microstructure analysis under different pressure-less sintering temperatures, holding time, substrate surface, and chip size. Full factor analysis results were further discussed in detail for correlation. The influence factors were ranked from strong to weak as follows: sintering temperature, substrate surface, chip size, and holding time. Finally, a thermal cycling test was carried out for reliability analysis. Epoxy residues are one of the possible reasons which result in shear strength decreasing exponentially.

Indentation Tests for Sintered Silver in Die-Attach Interconnection After Thermal Cycling

Thermo-mechanical reliability assessment for sintered silver is a crucial issue as sintered silver is a promising candidate of die-attachment materials for power devices. In this paper, the nano-indentation tests are performed for sintered silver in typical die-attach interconnection under different thermal cycles. Based on thermal cycling test, the Young's modulus and hardness of sintered silver layer have been presented. It is found that the Young's modulus and hardness of sintered silver layer changes slightly although the microstructure of sintered silver also presents some variations. The stress and strain curves for different thermal cycling tests for sintered silver based on reverse analysis of nano-indentation are also given. The results show that the elastoplastic constitutive equations change significantly after thermal cycling tests, and the yielding stress decreases remarkably after 70 thermal cycles. The experimental investigation also show that the cracking behaviors of sintered silver depends on its geometry characteristics, which implies that the possible optimization of sintered silver layer could enhance its thermo-mechanical performance.

Degradation Mechanism of Pressure-Assisted Sintered Silver by Thermal Shock Test

This paper investigates the degradation mechanism of pressure-sintered silver (s-Ag) film for silicon carbide (SiC) chip assembly with a 2-millimeter-thick copper substrate by means of thermal shock test (TST). Two different types of silver paste, nano-sized silver paste (NP) and nano-micron-sized paste (NMP), were used to sinter the silver film at 300 °C under a pressure of 60 MPa. The mean porosity (p) of the NP and MNP s-Ag films was 2.4% and 8%, respectively. The pore shape of the NP s-Ag was almost spherical, whereas the NMP s-Ag had an irregular shape resembling a peanut shell. After performing the TST at temperatures ranging from −40 to 150 °C, the scanning acoustic tomography (SAT) results suggested that delamination occurs from the edge of the assembly, and the delamination of the NMP s-Ag assembly was faster than that of the NM s-Ag assembly. The NMP s-Ag assembly showed a random delamination, indicating that the delamination speed varies from place to place. The difference in fracture mechanism is discussed based on cross-sectional scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation results after TST and plastic strain distribution results estimated by finite element analysis (FEA) considering pore configuration.