Evaluation on Metal Matrix Composite of CuSiC as Candidate for Thermal Management Materials in Electronics Packaging

Bukhari MZ, Brabazon D, Hashmi MSJ, 

School of Materials Engineering,
Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP),
02600 Jejawi, Perlis, Malaysia

School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering,
Dublin City University (DCU), Dublin 9, Republic of Ireland

In the quest to pack into ever shrinking cell phone, digital audio players or personal digital assistance (PDA), which will definitely helps to ensure the electronic equipment does not overheat, fail or malfunction, nanotechnology researchers keep running up against unpleasant truths, which are higher current density will induce thermomigration as well as electromigration which will damage metal conductors and produce heat that leads to premature failure of the electronic devices. As customers demand more reliable electronics system, it has therefore pushed the electronics manufacturers as well as the electronics industry to the limit of developing smaller and slimmer portable devices.

The skills require in developing these “improved and enhanced packages”, must associates with a thorough understanding in Design for Manufacturing (DFM), Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA), materials selection etc. Since early 80’s, various materials such as Copper, Aluminium, Kovar (Fe-Ni alloy), CuW, CuMo were introduced as electronic packaging materials, but failed due to mismatch in coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), thermal conductivity or density values between the IC package and the baseplate. Only in the end of the 20th century, metal matrix composite (MMC) such as AlSiC and CuSiC as well as anisotropic composite like AlSiC-TPG have been developed and introduced into market which reported to have better thermal properties. In the 21st century, researches published, suggests that these MMC could be integrated into electronics equipment in order to avoid them from overheat, malfunction or fail. In order to verify this, in this paper, researches have been conducted on CuSiC metal matrix composite (MMC).

Two (2) major aspects of studies had been conducted on this composite through powder metallurgy method. Effect of particle size and milling process on the physical, microstructural and thermal properties had been studied, analyses and evaluated. The analysed samples had undergo weighing and mixing, followed by milling process, cold isostatic pressing, sintering, grinding and polishing, density characterization,  thermal  conductivity  testing  and  particle  size  characterization.

The microstructure obtained from prepared samples had been subjected for Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis to check and inspect for any change in particle size, shape as well as formation of agglomeration. It was found that CuSiC composite which is the “new” millennium discovery material, is highly potential thermal management candidate that has good thermal dissipation, light weight and easy-to-process characteristics for application in industry.

Thermal conductivity vs. CTE of selected thermally enhanced materials (courtesy of H.C Stark)

The Future of Computing (courtesy of GE)