electronic substrate and package ceramics

Introduction

      advanced industrial materials that, owing to their insulating qualities, are useful in the production of electronic components.

      Modern electronics are based on the integrated circuit, an assembly of millions of interconnected components such as transistors and resistors that are built up on a tiny chip of silicon. In order to maintain their reliability, these circuits depend on insulating materials that can serve as substrates (that is, the bases on which the microscopic electronic components and their connections are built) and packages (that is, the structures that seal a circuit from the environment and make it a single, compact unit). The insulating properties of ceramics are well known, and these properties have found application in advanced ceramic materials for substrates and packages. The materials and products are described in this article.

Materials

      Among the ceramics employed as electronic substrates and packages, the dominant material is alumina (aluminum oxide, Al₂O₃). The advantages of alumina include high resistivity, good mechanical and dielectric strength, excellent thermal and corrosion stability, and the ability to provide hermetic seals. Its major disadvantages are a relatively high dielectric constant (which delays signal propagation) and low thermal conductivity (which makes it inefficient at drawing away heat). For these reasons ceramic materials with improved properties are under development. Some of these materials are mentioned below.

Substrates

      Alumina substrates are made as either thick films or thin films. Thick-film substrates are made by tape-casting processes (primarily doctor blading) to thicknesses of less than 1.5 millimetres, or they are made by dry pressing at thicknesses greater than 1.5 millimetres. The formulation contains 96 percent Al₂O₃, the rest being alkaline-earth silicates that form a glass during sintering to bond the alumina particles together. The glass also serves to bond with thick-film resistors or conductors built on the surface of the substrate.

      Thin-film substrates (less than 1 millimetre thick) are also made by doctor blading, a process illustrated in Figure 1 of the article advanced ceramics. Organic binder and plasticizer are added to assist in forming. The standard formulation is 99.5 percent alumina, with small amounts of magnesia (MgO) and silica (SiO₂) added to control grain size during sintering.

Multilayer packages

      Integrated circuits are often contained in multilayer packages such as chip carriers, dual-in-line packages, and pin-grid arrays. These structures serve to house semiconductor devices in strong, thermally stable, hermetically sealed environments.

      Ceramic packages are made of 90–94 percent Al₂O₃, the rest of the formulation consisting of glass-forming alkaline-earth silicates. One major requirement is that the formulations be able to be cofired with tungsten or molybdenum metallization lines. The alumina layers are produced by tape casting/doctor blading, after which the tapes can be hole-punched or laser-cut, via-hole-coated (vias are conductive pathways between layers), and metallized with tungsten or molybdenum by screen printing. Several layers are then laminated into multilayer structures. Cofiring takes place at temperatures up to 1,600° C (2,900° F) in protective atmospheres of hydrogen or hydrogen-nitrogen gas in order to prevent the metals from oxidizing. The result of cofiring is a monolithic package with internal conductor paths. The silicon chip is mounted in the package, and the package is hermetically sealed with a glass or metal lid.

      The purpose of the integrated circuit package is to contain the silicon device and to connect it to the external electric circuitry. The packaging materials must have low dielectric constants (in order to minimize the delay in signal processing), and they must conduct heat away from the semiconductor devices. Alumina is poor on both counts. Higher-thermal-conductivity materials exist, but they are either toxic (as in the case of beryllium oxide, BeO) or are poor cofiring ceramics (e.g., aluminum nitride, AlN). Glass-ceramic formations have been developed that are easy to process, have low dielectric constants, and also match the thermal expansion coefficients of high-conductivity metals (gold and copper) that are used in electric circuitry. However, they have low strengths and low thermal conductivities.

 Electronic substrates and packages are only one type of advanced electroceramic application. For a directory to articles on other applications, as well as articles on all aspects of advanced and traditional ceramics, see Industrial Ceramics: Outline of Coverage—.

Additional Reading

Materials on electronic substrate and package ceramics may be found in A.J. Moulson and J.M. Herbert, Electroceramics: Materials, Properties, Applications (1990); Larry L. Hench and J.K. West, Principles of Electronic Ceramics (1990); and the section titled “Electrical/Electronic Applications for Advanced Ceramics,” in Theodore J. Reinhart (ed.), Engineered Materials Handbook, vol. 4, Ceramics and Glasses, ed. by Samuel J. Schneider (1991), pp. 1105–66.A good introduction to ceramics in general is provided by David W. Richerson, Modern Ceramic Engineering: Properties, Processing, and Use in Design, 2nd ed., rev. and expanded (1992). The processing of both traditional and advanced ceramics is described in James S. Reed, Introduction to the Principles of Ceramic Processing (1988); I.J. McColm and N.J. Clark, Forming, Shaping, and Working of High Performance Ceramics (1988); George Y. Onoda, Jr., and Larry L. Hench, Ceramic Processing Before Firing (1978); and four sections of the Reinhart book cited above: “Ceramic Powders and Processing,” pp. 41–122; “Forming and Predensification, and Nontraditional Densification Processes,” pp. 123–241; “Firing/Sintering: Densification,” pp. 242–312; and “Final Shaping and Surface Finishing,” pp. 313–376.Thomas O. Mason

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