Low-temperature silver sintering processes on high performance ENIG, EPIG, ENEPIG and ISIG surfaces for power electronic systems and huge battery systems

Low-temperature low-pressure silver sintering is a die attachment process for highly reliable power modules. The quality of the sintered interconnection strongly depends on the properties of substrate metal, the die metallization and the sinter paste. This paper investigates the properties of chips sintered at 10 MPa and 250 °C on recently proposed gold layers, which are electrochemically deposited on nickel, palladium and silver layers in a mixed displacement and autocatalytic reaction. This specific deposition process leads to ENIG, EPIG ENEPIG and ISIG finishes comprising a gold layer of high purity, which was proven utilizing X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and FIB-SEM sections. Shear tests demonstrated the high quality of the sintered interconnection. Shear values at room temperature exceeded 80 N/mm
²
. After storing the substrate for two hours at 200 °C or for one hour at 350 °C prior to the sintering process shear values over 80 N/mm
²
were measured. Gold layers deposited by this new process are very suitable for silver sintering processes and tolerant to various sinter pastes from different manufactures. Shear values derived from a paste of a different vendor exceeded 180 N/mm
²
, resulting in copper torn out of the DCB.