Low-temperature bonding of electronic components – Development of an advanced, environmentally conscious joining technology using nanomaterials

With the next-generation sheet devices, various electronic components will be built or embedded into flexible sheets. This makes it essential to develop a technology that can mount those components to the sheet at lower temperatures enough to avoid thermal damage. To address this issue, the project, under Research theme 2, aims to develop new nanomaterials for use in conductive adhesion. These are made of metal nanoparticles having low-temperature sinterability, with an organic protecting group also acting as a flux added thereto. Nanomaterials thus created will be applied as both type of “conductive adhesives” and “metal nanoparticle pastes”, through which a highly reliable, advanced low-temperature joining technology, capable of mounting electronic components and making interconnections for next-generation sheet devices, can be realized.

By working together with Research theme 1, it is expected that a variety of nanomaterials designed to function as fillers for conductive adhesives will be applied as copper-based conductive adhesives, so that adhesives with high conductivity and joining strength can be developed and a joining technology can thereby be established. The project will also attempt to develop a low-temperature joining technology, based on the use of flux-free high-strength joining metal nanoparticle pastes prepared by turning silver- and copper-based nanomaterials into a paste form that will also be formulated to have the function of a flux; moreover, the project will work on the development of a new, highly sophisticated low-temperature joining technology that exploits the advantages of the respective joining methods by combining the research results of both themes.

An example of joining using a silver nanoparticle paste