Additive metallization of injection molded ceramic components by a plasma-coating process

Electronic components are increasingly used in high temperature environments like automotive, deep drilling technology and aerospace applications. [1] For these applications, miniaturization is gaining importance so that traditional methods and materials encounter their limits. Furthermore, regarding miniaturization and increase of the functional density, electronic and mechanical components have to be merged. In order to reduce process time an alternative technology has to be found for application of conductor tracks on a three-dimensional surface in little time. The Moulded Interconnect Device (MID) technology offers significant potential regarding the aforementioned requirements like miniaturization, functional integration and shorter process cycles times. [2] However, for MID commonly used plastic materials are limited in temperature and chemical resistance. Thus the design freedom of the injection molding process is used for manufacturing ceramic materials. For improvement of the efficiency of commonly used metallization processes an innovative method, the plasma-coating-technology, is examined regarding the suitability for different applications. Therefore, adhesive strength between conductor track and substrate using different parameter settings of the plasma-coating-process as well as different pretreatments of the ceramic surfaces are investigated. For protection of additively applied copper structures different passivation types adapted to the desired use case are regarded. In addition, to assess the benefits of ceramic substrates, like high chemical and temperature resistance, the coated specimens are exposed to rough chemical environments and high thermal stress. In different electrical and mechanical tests, changes of those properties are investigated after the external influences. In the last step the flexibility of the plasma-coating-technology is shown by coating a spatial part. Afterwards, a functional electrical circuit board is constructed.