Large Area Sintering
Christopher Okpala (MatE), Justus Maloto (ME), Kevin Tran (ME), Joe Leon (ME), Armando Ramirez (EE), and Tim Nguy (CNSM)
Advisors: Rod Mapanao (Jabil) and Muhammad Irsyad (Jabil)
Large Area Sintering
Christopher Okpala (MatE), Justus Maloto (ME), Kevin Tran (ME), Joe Leon (ME), Armando Ramirez (EE), and Tim Nguy (CNSM)
Advisors: Rod Mapanao (Jabil) and Muhammad Irsyad (Jabil)
Pressure-assisted sintering in packaging electronics has been used to successfully interconnect materials and increase densification for several different applications. Complications arise in this method of sintering when the parameter of the sintered area increases (Large Area Sintering [LAS]), such as paste application and paste drying. Our team used manual stencil screen printing as the technique used to apply silver sinter paste on a silver-plated aluminum heat sink. To inspect the mechanical and physical properties of the sintered area, different testing mechanisms were used like x-ray analysis, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), confocal scanning acoustic microscopy (C-SAM), torque testing, Instron, and image analysis. Our final design passed the void content threshold of 10%, deeming that aspect to be a success. Shear strength provided results that were satisfactory after the sintering step. A targeted bondline thickness (BLT) of 100 micron was also achieved post-sintering. Methods of procedure for LAS were identified to provide an outlook on how to approach these techniques in different avenues like the interconnect of a power package onto a heat sink/cold plate for future electric vehicles.