Curing and electrical conductivity of conductive glues for die attach in microelectronics

The curing process of silver-filled glues can be traditionally monitored through thermomechanical measurements such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). This technique is useful for the control of the polymerization and other chemical reactions mainly involving the organic moiety of the glue. However, it is not useful to ascertain whether good electrical conduction paths are established between all the conductive filler particles as expected at the end of the curing process. In this paper, we propose a method for the control of the surface electrical conductivity of a commercial silver-filled glue, based on the charging-up phenomena occurring in ESCA spectroscopy. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.