A new void free soldering process in large-area, high power IGBT modules

Author

Onuki, Jin ; Chonan, Yasunori ; Komiyama, Takao ; Nihei, Masayasu ; Saitou, Ryuichi ; Suwa, Masatem ; Kitano, Makoto

Author_Institution

Fac. of Syst. Sci. & Technol., Akita Univ., Japan

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

367

Lastpage

370

Abstract

A new void free process for the solder joint between a chip mounted AlN substrate and a metal substrate in large-area, high power IGBT modules has been investigated. The following new process consists of two steps. First, Ar⁺ ions were used to clean the surface of Ni plated films on the metal and AlN substrates by followed by coating with a thin Ag film, and secondly, 50 wt.% Pb-Sn solder sandwiched between the two substrates was heated in vacuum at 503 K for 5 min. and then cooled in a N₂ atmosphere. Using this process, the area percentage of voids in a soldering area up to 130×190 mm² can be reduced to less than 0.2%. The fatigue life time of solder joints made with this new method are found to be about 3 times longer than those by the soldering methods in H₂ (abbreviated as H₂ process hereafter)

Keywords

insulated gate bipolar transistors; power transistors; semiconductor device metallisation; soldering; 503 K; Ag; Ag thin film coating; AlN; AlN substrate; Ar; Ar⁺ ion cleaning; Ni; Ni plated film; Pb-Sn; Pb-Sn solder joint; chip mounting; fatigue lifetime; large-area high-power IGBT module; metal substrate; vacuum heating; void-free soldering; Capacitive sensors; Coatings; Etching; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Metallization; Power engineering and energy; Soldering; Substrates; Surface morphology; Thermal stresses;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs, 2000. Proceedings. The 12th International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Toulouse

ISSN

1063-6854

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6269-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISPSD.2000.856845

Filename

856845