Reliability of adhesive interconnections for application in display module

Abstract

The reliability of adhesive interconnections using anisotropic conductive film (ACF) and non-conductive film (NCF) was evaluated by measuring connection resistance during 500 cycles of thermal shock testing. The four-point probe method was used to measure the connection resistance of the adhesive joints constructed with Au bump on Si chip and Cu pad on flexible printed circuit (FPC). The connection resistance of the ACF joints was markedly higher than that of the NCF joints, mainly due to the constriction of the current flow and the intrinsic resistance of the conductive particles in the ACF joints. The connection resistances of both interconnections decreased with increasing bonding force, and subsequently converged to about 10 and 1 mΩ at a bonding force of 70 and 80 N, for the ACF and NCF joints, respectively. During the thermal shock testing, two different conduction behaviors were observed: increased connection resistance and the termination of Ohmic behavior. The former was due to the decreased contact area caused by z-directional swelling of the adhesives, whereas the latter was caused by either contact opening in the adhesive joints or interface cracking.