ULTRASOUND INTERCONNECT STACK AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING SAME

An acoustic device and method of manufacturing same. The device may be used to inspect tubulars and parts with high resolution. The acoustic device may include a 2D ultrasonic transducer layer and an ASIC connected to each other by an array of conductive wires. A non-conductive, acoustic damping material is flowed and set around the wires. to form a thick acoustic backing layer. Manufacturing the ultrasonic transducer may involve wire bonding. Electrical Discharge Machining or supporting rigid posts on a substrate. A surface of the backing layer may be machined. plated and diced to create conductive pads to connect the transducer layer to the wires then to the ASIC.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to United Kingdom Patent Application No. 2118476.7 filed on Dec. 17, 2021, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates generally to imaging devices, in particular, structures for 2D ultrasound arrays and their connections.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Ultrasound transducers are often used in Non-destructive Testing (NDT) and industrial imaging tools to determine properties of the object being tested. Such transducers are provided as a stack of composite PZT to transmit and receive acoustic waves, a lens layer on the transmission surface, a matching layer and a backing layer, as shown inFIG.2.

Transducers can be provided as an array, with some high-resolution transducers provided as a two-dimensional array. This creates a formidable challenge in connecting all the individual elements of the array to the drive circuit. There are additional challenges for that circuit to address each element or multiplex them.

There is a need to avoid soldering due to the temperature required for reflow soldering being too high for the PZT composite and backing layer to withstand. Additionally, thermal expansion mismatch between the backing layer and the substrates is very large and creates high stresses.

Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) are sometimes used to connect and drive these 2D arrays. Various ways have been devised to connect an ASIC to an ultrasound array, but these tend to have some manufacturing complications and acoustic imperfections. One method involves drilling holes in a non-conductive epoxy matrix and back filling the holes with conductive epoxy.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides an improved ultrasonic stack and method of manufacturing same in an efficient manner and having improved acoustic properties.

According to one inventive aspect there is provided a method of manufacturing an ultrasonic transducer comprising the steps of: providing an ultrasonic transducer layer having a two-dimensional array of electrodes defining ultrasonic elements: providing an electrical interconnect layer having a two-dimensional array of bond pads: providing a two-dimensional array of conductive wires: flowing a non-conductive, acoustic damping material around the wires: setting the non-conductive, acoustic damping material to form an acoustic backing layer having a thickness of at least 4 mm; and electrically coupling the conductive wires at their first ends to the bond pads of the electrical interconnect layer and at their second ends to the electrodes of the ultrasonic transducer layer.

According to another inventive aspect there is provided an acoustic device comprising: an ultrasonic transducer layer having a two-dimensional array of electrodes defining ultrasonic elements; an electrical interconnect layer having a two-dimensional array of bond pads: a two-dimensional array of conductive wires, electrically coupled at their first ends to the bond pads of the electrical interconnect layer and at their second ends to the electrodes of the ultrasonic transducer layer; and a non-conductive, acoustic damping material formed around the wires, to form an acoustic backing layer having a thickness of at least 4 mm.

According to another inventive aspect there is provided a method of manufacturing an ultrasound stack comprising the steps of: wire bonding a plurality of wires between first conductive pads of a first support substrate and second conductive pads of a second support substrate; and flowing a non-conductive, acoustic damping material around the wires to set and form an acoustic backing layer that is 4-6 mm thick. The first support substrate is a two-dimensional ultrasonic transducer array or the plurality of wires are connected at first ends to said two-dimensional ultrasonic transducer array. The second support substrate is a two-dimensional electrical interconnect layer or the plurality of wires are connected at second ends to said two-dimensional electrical interconnect layer.

Preferred embodiments of any of the above inventive aspects may be implemented as described in the detailed description and may include one or more following features:

The conductive wires are enclosed in a mold prior to flowing and setting the acoustic damping material, which mold has a width and length sufficient to cover the ultrasonic transducer layer's array of electrodes and a thickness of at least 4 mm.

The two-dimensional array of conductive wires are supported at their first and second ends by first and second support substrates respectively, which support substrates are parallel to and offset from each other by at least 4 mm.

The two-dimensional array of conductive wires is created by a wire bonding tool that bonds the array of wires between first conductive pads of a first support substrate and second conductive pads of a second support substrate.

The first support substrate is one of: the ultrasonic transducer layer or the electrical interconnect layer, wherein the electrical interconnect layer is preferably an integrated circuit (IC), Application Specific Integrated Circuits ASIC, or Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic.

The second support substrate is a sacrificial substrate, preferably a circuit board, the method further comprising the step of removing the sacrificial substrate after the steps of flowing and setting.

One or both support substrates are removed by machining, grinding, or etching to provide a flat surface of the backing layer, preferably further comprising adding a metal layer over this flat surface, then cutting through the metal layer to form an array of backing layer pads.

The first support substrate and second support substrate are not co-planar, preferably forming an angle of 60-120° to each other, more preferably wherein the support substrates are orthogonal to each other.

The two-dimensional array of spaced-apart conductive wires is created by Electrical Discharge Machining.

The two-dimensional array of spaced-apart conductive wires is created by inserting an array of rigid pins into arrays of guide holes on first and second support substrates that are spaced apart.

An adhesive layer is provided between the backing layer and the array of electrodes or array of bond pads, said adhesive layer entraining conductive particles.

The array of conductive wires has a pitch the same as the transducer's electrodes and as the electrical interconnect layer's bond pads.

The electrical interconnect layer is one of: an integrated circuit (IC), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), or Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC).

There is an array of backing layer pads is connected to the first and/or second ends of the wires.

There is an adhesive layer between the backing layer and the array of electrodes or array of bond pads, said adhesive layer entraining conductive particles.

The non-conductive, acoustic damping material comprises non-conductive epoxy, preferably having an acoustic impedance lower than the acoustic transducer layer, more preferably having an acoustic impedance between 7 and 12 MRayls.

These inventive aspects provide a connection between an acoustic transducer array and circuitry while also having optimal acoustic properties.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

With reference to the accompanying figures, an ultrasound device and methods of manufacturing are disclosed for a 2D ultrasound array that is mechanically and electrically connected to a circuit. As shown in explodedFIG.1, the ultrasound stack1comprises a lens9, matching layer20, PZT composite14, common electrode5, backing layer7, and ASIC3. Individual electrodes6are connected by wires4to bond pads17on the top surface of the ASIC.

The internal circuits of the integrated circuit (IC) or, more particularly Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC), selectively drive voltages to certain bond pads, which activate individual transducer elements of the PZT composite through the wires. Thus the array of wires4are spaced-apart and surrounded by non-conducting material8to prevent activation or cross-talk with other elements. The activated PZT posts move out of plane to pulse a wave that travels outwards through the matching layer, common electrode and lens. The wave also travels backwards through the backing layer and ASIC. Thus a second function of the backing layer is to dampen this back-propagating wave.

FIG.3shows the transducer in isometric view, where the array is arranged in a regular pattern with N×M elements and pitch30. In preferred embodiments there are at least 4096 (e.g. 64×64) elements, more preferably at least 16000 (e.g. 128×128). The pitch30is preferably less than 500 um, more preferably about 300 um. The individual piezoelectric posts are diced into the substrate of PZT composite14, with plural posts acting together as an individual transducer element10, as known in the art.

A thin metal layer is coated onto the bottom of the PZT and separated into individual electrodes6. The top of the PZT composite is covered by a thin metal layer to act as a common electrode5. Thus plural PZT posts are activated for a given transducer element when a drive voltage is selectively applied between common electrode5and the relevant individual electrode6. These electrode layers may be deposited by vapor deposition or other methods known in the art.

Above the PZT layer there is typically a matching layer20and lens9. The matching layer material is typically chosen to have an impedance that is the geometric mean of the PZT composite and the lens material. For example, the matching layer may be 0.167 mm thick epoxy filled with Aluminum oxide powder to give an impedance of 9 MRayls. The lens provides the curvature to focus the wave as desired and should be made of a material suited to the coupling fluid. In industrial applications, the lens may be made of PEEK.

While in prior devices, the elements were connected with hundreds of wires and multiplexers to a drive circuit and processor, the present device may use an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) that is physically and electrically indirectly connected to the transducer layer, using a backing layer therebetween. The top layer of the ASIC3may have bond pads17with a pitch the same as the transducer electrodes6. The ASIC's bond pads may be of a smaller pitch if a separate electrical interconnect layer is used to reroute the connections. In this case, the electrical interconnect layer's bond pads connect to the transducer layer with the backing layer in between. Traditional bonding and routing techniques cannot be used for the interconnect because neither the interconnect layer nor the ASIC provide the correct acoustic properties, i.e. sufficient damping to attenuate the backwards wave. Common techniques for providing an interconnect do not include highly attenuative materials or are not applied thick enough to be sufficiently attenuative.

As shown inFIG.2, the ASIC may be connected by another electrical interconnect substrate, such as Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC)15. The top of this interconnect substrate has bond pads aligned to the transducer electrodes6. There are interconnect conductors routed from the top of this interconnect substrate to its bottom, where the interconnect substrate electrically connects to bond pads of the ASIC, flexible connector or another circuit board. This allows the ASIC or other circuit to be manufactured without constraining its pinout and geometry, while using a finer pitch35than the transducer pitch30. For example, there may be plural ASICs with smaller pitch35that connect to upper LTCC15, which then connect to lower LTCC16. LTCC16may have larger pitch pins47to connect the ASIC to some larger processing circuit45(seeFIG.10).

Thus, a backing layer is provided between the circuit and ultrasonic transducer, aligned to connect acoustic electrodes6to pads17using conductive wires4. The backing layer also attenuates the backward wave, so the bulk of the layer is highly acoustically attenuative. There is an inherent tradeoff between and bandwidth when you change the impedance of the backing layer. Here, low bandwidth returns blurry images, whereas high bandwidth returns sharp images. The present solution solves the contradictions of a) being electrically conductive and also insulating and of b) being precisely aligned in the X, Y axes, while also thick in the Z-axis. The backing layer may have an impedance of 7-12 Mrayls, being lower than that of the transducer layer's material, e.g. ceramic PZT.

In certain embodiments the backing layer is at least 3 mm thick, more preferably 4-6 mm thick, in order to achieve sufficient damping. The backing layer's thickness is in a direction away from the transducer layer's array of electrodes. The width and length of the backing layer are sufficient to cover the transducer layer's array of electrodes. The wires4occupy less than 50% of the total volume of the backing layer, and more preferably less than 20% of the volume, in order to provide maximum damping properties. The wires are solid metal, such as copper, silver or gold. The matrix damping material8may comprise 70-90% tungsten or cerium oxide particles50by weight to increase attenuation and impedance.

In one embodiment, the quantity of wires4, electrodes6and bond pads17are provided in a 1:1:1 ratio and precisely aligned with each other. The wires are much thinner than the ultrasonic electrodes and pads but have the same pitch. By way of example, the pitch is 300 um, the electrode width (or diameter) is 200 um, and the wire width is 50 um.

FIG.8shows a backing layer arranged in a ‘many wires per electrode’ embodiment. Here, the vertical wires are provided in excess and not specifically aligned to any transducer electrode6, provided that the pad17and electrode6are themselves aligned. The wires are not thick enough to bridge two neighbouring electrodes/pads on the same substrate. Most of the wires4aredundantly connect electrode-pad pairs and some wires4bare unused or wasted, not connecting any electrodes. The redundancy improves transducer yield as a few faulty wires will not leave any electrode-pad pair unconnected. Depending on the manufacturing techniques used, the unused wires may be conductive filaments4bthat do not connect to anything or be conductive particles that have not formed a fully aligned wire in the Z-direction.

There are existing materials that may be repurposed or modified to form backing layer7. These are sometimes called anisotropic conductive films (ACF), anisotropic conductive epoxies (ACE), or Z-axis conductive layers, where Z refers to the out of plane direction.

An array of vertically aligned solid wires may be provided inside a mold then the non-conductive, acoustic damping material68is added in and around the wires.FIG.6ashows an example where conductive wires64are provided, connected at one end to a mold support substrate60and then fluid, non-conductive epoxy68or thermosetting plastic is flowed around the wires (FIG.6B) under vacuum to set and form the damping matrix. The non-conductive, acoustic damping material may be set using one or more of heat, pressure, and UV lighting, depending on the epoxy chosen. The wires, in cross-section, may be circular for simplicity or a cross for lateral stability. The wires4become held within damping matrix8, which when removed from the mold60, are machined at the top surface to form the backing layer7, as shown further inFIG.12.

The mold's dimensions are typically the same as the desired backing layer (i.e. of width and length sufficient to cover the major surface of the transducer layer), and a thickness in a direction normal to that major surface and sufficiently thick to damper the acoustic energy (i.e. greater than 4 mm). The mold width and length may be multiples of the transducer size in order to make plural backing layers at once and then diced OR cover plural transducers with one backing layer.

FIG.7illustrates another process for forming the backing layer using a jig with guide holes for holding a plurality of rigid pins, which become the wires4. The jig may comprise upper diaphragm142, upper guide substrate143, lower guide substrate145, lower diaphragm147, offset spacer148, and backing layer spacer149. The diaphragms are thin membranes supported at their edges to be pierced by the pins and provide friction against each pin to prevent them slipping out of place. The guide substrates comprise a 2D array of holes that tightly accommodate the width of the pins. As shown, the jig components may initially be aligned and stacked vertically closely together. The plural pins are inserted through holes in the guide substrates, piercing the diaphragms. The pins may be tungsten rods and should be sufficiently rigid to poke through the diaphragms and into the guides without deforming. The upper and lower guide substrates are then separated from each other to the desired thickness of the backing layer. Spacer149holds the substrates apart and forms the mold walls. The flowable damping material is added to the mold, flowing around the pins and setting to form the acoustic damping matrix of the backing layer. The spacer, substrates and excess pin length are removed to leave just the backing layer with the array of wires. As described elsewhere, the top and bottom of the backing layer may be plated and cut to form backing layer pads at both ends of the wires.

In photolithography, layers of material are deposited, then areas are selectively masked, followed by etching of non-masked areas. This process is well understood in the field. Thus a structure can be built up that contains precisely arranged conductive and non-conductive areas. Typically these layers are thin, too thin to act as a attenuative backing layer. Thicker layers take longer to build up and/or struggle to create high aspect structures, such as the long thin wires. However certain materials, such as EPON SU-8 allows thicker microstructures that have high aspect ratio (40:1) and good sidewall integrity. When doped with conductive particles, these precisely located structures can be used to form the wires. The wires are then surrounded by non-conductive epoxy and then the bottom and top surfaces are polished flat.

In another concept, a non-conductive matrix material with embedded conductive particles is provided and subjected to an external field that aligns the conductive particles vertically, as shown inFIG.8. The conductive particles become connected to each other to form vertically aligned wires extending from top to bottom surface of the backing layer by an external magnetic or electric field. The result is an anisotropic conductive film, where the wires remain vertically aligned even after the field is removed. Plural thin layers may be stacked because Anisotropic Conductive Films (ACF) tend to be sold thinner than needed for the attenuation properties of the backing layer.

Alternatively, as shown inFIGS.10,11and set out in the flowchart ofFIG.9, the wires4may be made by a wire bonding tool. Such tools are known to those skilled in the art and commercially available. They may be automatedly articulated in X, Y and Z to move between pads, tacking the wire at each pad. The bonding technique may be ball bonding, compliant bonding or wedge bonding, which use temperature, pressure or ultrasound to make a weld at the pad. First and second support substrates are held in a jig, while the wire bonding tool or the jig move to connect plural wires between arrays of pads of the support substrates. The tool tacks a first end of each wire to a first pad on the first substrate then tacks a second end of that wire to a second pad on the second substrate. The spooled wire is severed from the formed wire and the process is repeated for each of the hundred or more wires needed to create the wire array. The tool may form a loop of excess length in the wires to create slack, so that the two substrates may be moved apart to create a space of the thickness required for the backing layer. Such wire is available in gold and other metals with fine gauges (e.g. 10-25 um in diameter), which is small in area compared to the transducer element (in plan view), which element may be 200-500 um per side. Thus, most of the backing layer is made of acoustic damping material, e.g. more than 95% damping material, whose properties dominate the acoustic properties of the overall transducer.

Once all the wires are bonded and the substrates are in the desired spacing, the non-conductive material68is allowed to flow in and between wires to form the backing matrix. The support substrates may be the ASIC, transducer array, an interconnect layer, or a sacrificial layer (e.g., a circuit board) that is later machined off.

In the embodiment ofFIG.10, the ASICs3are provided to the side and at right angles to the transducer14, instead of being co-planar, parallel or overlapping. The wires4thus run angled through the damping matrix8. This arrangement provides more space for the wire bonding tool to move and decouples the pitch and spacing of the electrodes6relative to bond pads17. As shown, a flex circuit40routes the signals from the ASIC to processing circuits45. Advantageously, this moves the electronics away from the object being inspected and allows multiple transducer arrays to be tightly tiled together.

In this embodiment, the wire bonding tool head110rotates to connect to the generally orthogonal substrates. The two substrates may have their pad surfaces orthogonal to each other (perFIG.10) or may form an obtuse angle up to 150°. InFIG.10, a 2:1 ratio of first support substrates (ASICs) to second support substrate (transducer array) are shown wired together, but the ratio may be 4:1 or 1:1.

FIG.11illustrates a side, cross-sectional view of steps in a manufacturing method where the first and second support substrates are parallel, overlap and initially contact. In this example, the bottom support substrate is the transducer array and the top support substrate113is a circuit board. Alternatively, the bottom support substrate is the ASIC or interconnect layer. Alternatively, both support substrates are sacrificial substrates, such as circuit boards. A circuit board may be used, having an array of conductive vias117, each via adjacent to a window118, or indeed surrounding the window118. Each wire111is bonded from the bottom substrate's electrode6thru the window and to the via117of the upper substrate113. Typically, a wire bonding tool's head110is neither small enough nor has enough vertical travel to create taut wires between the substrates set 4-6 mm apart, so instead the support substrates start close together and a 4-6 mm wire loop is formed. A capillary head may be used at the tip of the wire bonding tool to fit through the windows118. As shown in the third step ofFIG.11, the two substrates are then separated in a direction orthogonal to the substrates' major surfaces to form a void114of the desired backing layer thickness. The wires are now taut and do not touch each other. The substrates are held apart in a jig while the damping matrix material is flowed to fill the void and set.

In some cases, the top surface of the backing layer may be level and have conductive pads in condition for immediate connection to the transducer array, ASIC, or interconnect layer. However, in many cases, the top will be uneven, the wires will have differing lengths and the wires themselves are not wide enough to make reliable contact with the transducer's pads or interconnect's pads.FIG.12illustrates three steps for finishing the backing layer after the damping matrix material has set using various embodiments discussed herein, in particular, following on from the wire bonding process ofFIG.11.

Initially, the backing layer is shown with bumpy wire loop111and uneven top substrate113, which is a sacrificial substrate. This substrate113and loops111are then removed, preferably by machining, grinding or etching to leave a flat top surface with the array of fine wires held in place by the much larger damping matrix. Then the top surface is plated with a conductive layer or adhered to a conductive foil. A thin metal layer may be deposited, followed by a conductive adhesive, and then thicker foil layer. In the last stage ofFIG.12, kerf cuts155are made through the plate or foil to create the backing layer pads150.

FIG.13illustrates steps in manufacturing an array of conductive wires4using Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM step132) from a support stock130. The wires are rigid enough to support themselves in this high-aspect ratio array, while being supported and moveable in the remaining stock130. The array of wires is placed in a mold and filled with the flowable damping material (e.g., epoxy) to set the backing layer. In step139, the molded backing layer is placed on a precision base, so that the mold walls can be machined away and top of the backing layer can be machined flat. Base130may be machined away or cut off by EDM. In step150, the backing layer block is plated with a conductive layer at top and bottom of the wires. In step155, kerf cuts are made through the plating to leave an array of pads to be connected to the transducer array14at one end and ASIC3or interconnects15/16at the other end.

The transducer stack may include an adhesive layer between the backing layer7and the transducer's electrodes6and/or between the backing layer and the interconnect's bond pads. The adhesive mechanically binds the layers while entrained conductive particles complete the electrical connection. The layer may be a pressure sensitive adhesive.

Terms such as “top”, “bottom”, “distal”, “proximate” “plan”, “side”, “below,” “above,” are used herein for simplicity in describing relative positioning of elements of the transducer, as depicted in the drawings or with reference to the surface datum. In practice, the transducer and the manufacturing process may be placed in any orientation without departing from the invention, as described.