Low Temperature Bonding of Cu Metal through Sintering of Ag Nanoparticles for High Temperature Electronic Application

Abstract

Lead-based solders bring pollution to the environment and result in health threat to humans. The preparation and application of metallic nanoparticles provide a potential method to develop Pb-free bonding materials. In this article, bonding of Ag-coated Cu bulks was realized through low temperature sintering by directly using the chemically-reduced Ag nanoparticle paste and baked nanoparticle powders at 60 o C, respectively. The results indicate that the capillary flow of paste caused a ring-like deposit on substrate coating, while this phenomenon disappeared when using the powders. Increasing bonding temperature facilitated the sintering, and shear strengths of 20 MPa and 84 MPa was obtained at bonding temperature of 250 o C for 30 min under 20 MPa when using the Ag paste and powders, respectively. High joint strength value of bonded region using paste is due to the high effective bonding pressure and small effective bonded area. Finally, for the extensive application in packaging industry especially for high temperature electronics, challenges such as the improvement of screen and stencil printing ability of paste, avoiding bonding pressure and lowering the cost were pointed out based on our and other researcher's achievements. Cu nanoparticle or Cu-containing nanoparticle mixture pastes are promising but the problems of oxidation and bonding stability must be resolved urgently.