Robust, novel, and low cost superhydrophobic nanocomposites coating for reliability improvement of microelectronics

The reliability is an important issue for IC devices. Since moisture, mobile ions, ultraviolet, and other hostile environment will affect the device performance and lifetime. In our study, a robust conformal superhydrophobic (SH) coating will be applied to improve the reliability of the device. SH epoxy/nano silica composites were spin-coated on triple track resistors (TTR). An O₂ plasma treatment was used to generate surface roughness on the cured epoxy. SH surfaces were produced after functionalization with perfluorooctyl trichlorosilane of low surface energy. The effect of plasma etching time on superhydrophobicty was investigated. A water contact angle of 170° and contact angle hysteresis of 2° were achieved when the etching time increased to 15 min. The leakage currents under bias for SH coated TTR were measured with aging time. The reliability test showed stable leakage current for 1000 hours, and the self-cleaning performance of the SH surface successfully protects the device.