Nanoporous Cu-Sn Intermetallic Material for Interconnects in Electronic Packaging
Authors: Dimitrov Nikolay , Castillo Ezer , Njuki Michael , Pasha Abdullah Faisal 
Published: February 2024

Nanostructured and nanoparticulate Cu-based materialshave emerged as viable replacements of conventional solder materials for realizing high-performing and reliable interconnection in today's 2.5D/3D electronic packaging. Unlike the traditional interconnects, those materials offer better compliance during the overall packaging routines. Owing to their highly developed surface area resulting of their uniform interconnected porosity, said nanomaterials also enable joint formation by sintering by thermal compression realized at high pressure and at much lower temperatures compared to bulk counterparts. Recently, sintering of nanoporous (np) Cu was demonstrated under high pressure and temperature after initial pre-treatment in acid for surface oxide removal. Separately, other studies have been focused on the attachment of Cu pillars to pads by using nanoparticulate Cu pastes as sintering material. The ultimate goal is to develop materials that facilitate a highly effective and durable chip-to-substrate interconnection.

In this report, we discuss the development and use of nanoporous uniform and continuous CuSn films for low-temperature joint formation. The novelty of this work is realized through the introduction of tin (Sn) to work along with the np-Cu structure for ensuring lower sintering temperatures with a goal of producing packaging interconnects based on CuSn intermetallic compound (IMC). The addition of Sn to the np-Cu system is performed using a bottom-up, all-electrochemical synthetic approach (see Figure 1). The method is founded on the initial synthesis of thin films of np-Cu by dealloying of Cu-Zn alloys, followed by a conformal coating with a thin layer of Sn. The main goal of the proposed approach is to form a np-CuSn composite that upon sintering at high temperature and pressure, transitions into a densely compressed Cu3Sn IMC bonding material. Realized accordingly as interconnect layer, said material ensures good stability at high current densities (greater than 1×105 A
⋅
cm2
) and low electrical resistivity (equal or less than 8.5 µΩ
⋅
cm).

The synthetic details and then the applicability of the Cu-Sn nanomaterials obtained using the approach for synthesis of a low-temperature joint formation material are also discussed. The Sn-coating process was administered by galvanic pulse plating, which was optimized to provide a conformal Sn coating and thus, to retain the initial np-Cu overall porous structure. Another optimization effort was made for ensuring a Sn atomic fraction that allows for the formation of Cu6Sn5 IMC. After the optimization process for determining the necessary plating conditions for reaching mostly Cu6Sn5 composition ratio, the material was subjected to sintering at temperatures in the range from 300ºC to 200oC, and at a pressure of 20 MPa. We found that the joints formed were heavily densified and consisted mainly of Cu3Sn IMC. The report presents the new approach as a facile and cost-effective method for synthesizing nanostructured Cu-Sn films as viable candidates for a new-generation of interconnect materials together with the demonstration of assembly processes that optimize robustness and reliability. The discussion also shows the proposed approach’s applicability by realization of low-temperature sintering of nanostructured CuSn films in pre-designed fine pitch assemblies.

Figure 1: Schematic representation demonstrating key steps of the approach for synthesis of np-CuSn composites.

Figure 1