Patent ID: 7789287

Claim:
A method for bonding a pair of bonded members, comprising: (a) a step of applying a metal paste to one bonded member, the metal paste consisting of one or more of gold powder, silver powder, platinum powder, and palladium powder having a purity not lower than 99.9 percent by weight and an average particle diameter of 0.3 μm to 1.0 μm and an organic solvent; (b) a step of drying the metal paste at a temperature of −20° C. to 5° C. in a decompressed vacuum atmosphere having a degree of vacuum not higher than 100 Pa, and sintering the dried metal paste at a temperature of 80 to 300° C. to form a metal powder sintered compact; and (c) a step of contacting the one bonded member and another bonded member together via the metal powder sintered compact between the bonded members and bonding the bonded members to each other by applying pressure from one direction of either the bonded members or both directions while at least the metal powder sintered compact is heated.