Accelerated aging and thermal cycling of low melting temperature alloys as wet thermal interface materials

Abstract This paper focuses on developing an effective thermal interface material (TIM) using low melt alloys (LMAs) containing gallium (Ga), indium (In), bismuth (Bi) and tin (Sn). The investigation described herein involved the thermal performance evaluation of LMAs after accelerated life cycle testing, which included isothermal aging at 130 °C and thermal cycling from - 40 °C to 80 °C. Three alloys (75.5Ga/24.5In, 100Ga, and 51In/32.5Bi/16.5Sn) were chosen as candidate LMA TIMs. The testing methodologies followed ASTM D5470 protocols and the performance of the alloys was compared to commercially available thermal grease and liquid metal TIMs. To understand the LMA-substrate interactions, the alloys were applied to different surfaces (bare copper, nickel coated copper and tungsten coated copper). It was found that the proposed alloys between bare copper substrates were able to survive as long as 2700 h of aging at 130 °C and 1400 cycles from − 40 °C to 80 °C without significant performance degradation.

[1]  Teng Wang,et al.  Nanostructured polymer-metal composite for thermal interface material applications , 2008, 2008 58th Electronic Components and Technology Conference.

[2]  M. Sobczak,et al.  Advanced thermal interface materials for enhanced flip chip BGA , 2001, 2001 Proceedings. 51st Electronic Components and Technology Conference (Cat. No.01CH37220).

[3]  Samuel Graham,et al.  Characterization of Metallically Bonded Carbon Nanotube-Based Thermal Interface Materials Using a High Accuracy 1D Steady-State Technique , 2012 .

[4]  Jingdong Guo,et al.  Thermal Performance of Low-Melting-Temperature Alloy Thermal Interface Materials , 2014, Acta Metallurgica Sinica (English Letters).

[5]  Chang-Jin Kim,et al.  Characterization of Nontoxic Liquid-Metal Alloy Galinstan for Applications in Microdevices , 2012, Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems.

[6]  S. Jung,et al.  Reaction Diffusion and Formation of Cu11In9 and In27Ni10 Phases in the Couple of Indium-Substrates , 2003 .

[7]  Characterization of Metallically Bonded Carbon Nanotube-Based Thermal Interface Materials Using a High Accuracy 1D Steady-State Technique , 2011 .

[8]  R. L. Webb,et al.  Apparatus for accurate measurement of interface resistance of high performance thermal interface materials , 2002, ITherm 2002. Eighth Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (Cat. No.02CH37258).

[9]  Robert G. Ebel,et al.  Performance, Reliability, and Approaches Using a Low Melt Alloy as a Thermal Interface Material , 2004 .

[10]  C. Richards,et al.  Characterization of a liquid–metal microdroplet thermal interface material , 2011 .

[11]  C. Lengauer,et al.  The system Ga–Ni: A new investigation of the Ga-rich part , 2010 .

[12]  Ravi Mahajan.  Emerging Directions For Packaging Technologies 62 Emerging Directions For Packaging Technologies , 2002 .

[13]  A. Balandin,et al.  Graphene-multilayer graphene nanocomposites as highly efficient thermal interface materials. , 2012, Nano letters.

[14]  Ravi Prasher,et al.  Thermal Interface Materials: Historical Perspective, Status, and Future Directions , 2006, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[15]  P. Conway,et al.  Thermal Interface Materials - A Review of the State of the Art , 2006, 2006 1st Electronic Systemintegration Technology Conference.

[16]  Wayne R. Johnson,et al.  Performance of low melt alloys as thermal interface materials , 2015, 2015 31st Thermal Measurement, Modeling & Management Symposium (SEMI-THERM).

[17]  Y. Joshi,et al.  CHARACTERIZATION OF NANOSTRUCTURED THERMAL INTERFACE MATERIALS - A REVIEW , 2011 .

[18]  R. Viswanath.  Thermal Performance Challenges from Silicon to Systems , 2000 .

[19]  V. Boldyrev,et al.  Interaction between copper and gallium , 2008 .

[20]  Sreekant Narumanchi,et al.  Thermal performance and reliability characterization of bonded interface materials (BIMs) , 2014, Fourteenth Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm).

[21]  R. Johnson,et al.  Investigation into the application of low melting temperature alloys as wet thermal interface materials , 2015 .

[22]  R. Webb,et al.  Low melting point thermal interface material , 2002, ITherm 2002. Eighth Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (Cat. No.02CH37258).

[23]  A. Balandin,et al.  Thermal Properties of the Hybrid Graphene-Metal Nano-Micro-Composites: Applications in Thermal Interface Materials , 2012, 1202.0330.

[24]  D. Chung.  Materials for thermal conduction , 2001 .

[25]  D. Chung.  Thermal interface materials , 2001, Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Technology International.

[26]  R. L. Webb,et al.  Performance and testing of thermal interface materials , 2003, Microelectron. J..

[27]  Jun Xu,et al.  Enhancement of thermal interface materials with carbon nanotube arrays , 2006 .

[28]  B. Pfahl,et al.  Highlights of iNEMI 2013 technology roadmaps , 2012, 2012 35th IEEE/CPMT International Electronics Manufacturing Technology Conference (IEMT).

[29]  R. F. Hill,et al.  Practical utilization of low melting alloy thermal interface materials , 2006, Twenty-Second Annual IEEE Semiconductor Thermal Measurement And Management Symposium.

[30]  Yves Martin,et al.  High Performance Liquid Metal Thermal Interface for Large Volume Production , 2007 .