Date Available

12-7-2011

Year of Publication

2010

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE)

Document Type

Thesis

College

Engineering

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Dr. Janet K Lumpp

Abstract

Electrically conductive adhesives (ECA) are discussed and studied with everincreasing interest as an environmentally friendly alternative to solder interconnection in microelectronics circuit packaging. They are used to attach surface mount devices (SMD), Integrated Circuits (IC) and Flip chips in electronic assembly. The use of ECAs brings some benefits like flexibility, mild processing conditions and process simplicity. Multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) are used instead of metal fillers because of their novel properties such as light weight, high aspect ratio, corrosion resistant, reduced processing temperature, lead free, good electrical conduction and mechanical strength.

The purpose of the present work is to investigate the aging behavior of MWCNT filled adhesives based on anhydride cured epoxy systems and their dependence on loading. Composites with different loadings of MWNT in epoxy and epoxy: heloxy are prepared and then stencil printed onto different surface finished boards like gold, silver and tin to prepare contact resistance samples and onto aluminum oxide boards to prepare volume resistivity samples. These samples are kept at room temperature for about 90 days and then placed in a temperature chamber to observe the behavior of these samples after accelerated aging. The readings are taken for as prepared samples, after 45 days, after 90 days and after accelerated aging. The results are summarized and different trends are observed for different loadings of MWNT, different combinations of epoxy: heloxy and for different surface finished boards.

Share

COinS