• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.283-288
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• 2008

We observed the in-situ stress behavior of Cu and Ag thin films during deposition using a thermal evaporation method. Multi-beam curvature measurement system was used to monitor the evolution of in-situ stress in Cu and Ag thin films on 100 Si(100) substrates. The measured curvature was converted to film stress using Stoney formula. To investigate the effects of the deposition rates on the stress evolution in Cu and Ag thin films, Cu and Ag films were deposited at rates ranging from 0.1 to $3.0{\AA}/s$ for Cu and from 0.5 to $4.0{\AA}/s$ for Ag. Both Cu and Ag films showed a unique three stress stages, such as 'initial compressive', 'a tensile maximum' and followed by 'incremental compressive' stress. For both Cu and Ag films, there is no remarkable effect of deposition rate on the thickness and average stress at the tensile maximum. There is, however, a definite decrease in the incremental compressive stress with increasing deposition rate.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.16-20
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• 2015

Ag addition in chalcopyrite materials is known to lead beneficial changes in aspects of structural and electronic properties. In this work, the effects of Ag alloying of $Cu(In,Ga)Se_2$-based solar cells has been investigated. Wide bandgap $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ (x = 0.75~0.8) films have been deposited using a three-stage co-evaporation with various Ag/(Ag+Cu) ratios. With Ag alloying the $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ (x~0.8) films were found to have greater grainsize and film thickness. Device were also fabricated with the $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ (x~0.8) films and their J-V and quantum efficiency measurements were carried out. The highest-efficiency $(Ag,Cu)(In_{1-x},Ga_x)Se_2$ solar cell with Eg > 1.5 eV had an efficiency of 12.2% with device parameters $V_{OC}=0.810V$, $J_{SC}=21.7mA/cm^2$, and FF = 69.0%.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.47 no.8
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• pp.500-507
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• 2009

Pb-free solder has recently been used in electronics in efforts to meet environmental regulations, and a number of Pb-free solder alloy choices beyond the near-eutectic SnAgCu solder are now available. With increased demand for thin and portable electronics, the high cost of alloys containing significant amounts of silver and their poor mechanical shock performance have spurred the development of low Ag SnAgCu solder, which provides improved mechanical performance at a reasonable cost. Although low Ag SnAgCu solder exhibits significantly higher fracture resistance under high-strain rates, little thermal fatigue data exist for this solder. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate thermal fatigue reliability of low Ag SnAgCu solder under variation of thermal stress in order to allow its implementation in electronic products with high reliability requirements. In this study, the reliability of Sn0.3Ag0.7Cu(SAC0307), a low Ag solder alloy, is discussed and compared with that of Sn3Ag0.5Cu(SAC305). Three sample types and six samples size are evaluated. Mechanical properties and microstructure of the solder joint are investigated under thermal shock cycles. It was observed that the mechanical strength of SAC0307 dropped slightly with thermal cycling relative to that of SAC305. This reveals that the failure mode of SAC0307 is different from that SAC305 under this critical condition.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.55-61
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• 2000

Sn-37Pb and Sn-3.5Ag-0.7Cu solder balls of 0.3 mm diameter were reflow soldered with the variation of soldering peak temperature and conveyer speed of reflow machine. The peak temperatures far soldering were changed in the range of 220~$240^{\circ}C$ for Sn-37Pb and 230~$260^{\circ}C$ for Sn-3.5Ag-0.7Cu. As the results of experiments, optimum soldering condition for Sn-37Pb was $230^{\circ}C$ of soldering temp., 0.7~0.8 m/min of conveyer speed. The optimum condition for the Sn-3.5Ag-0.7Cu was $250^{\circ}C$ and 0.6 m/min. The maximum shear strength for the soldered joints of Sn-37Pb was 555 gf and of Sn-3.5Ag-0.7Cu was 617 gf. Thickness of the intermetallic compound Cu6Sn5 on the soldered interface was 1.13~1.45 $\mu\textrm{m}$ for Sn-37Pb and 2.5~4.3 $\mu\textrm{m}$ for Sn-3.5Ag-0.7Cu.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.402-407
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• 2007

In electronics manufacturing processes, soldering process has generally been used in surface mounting technology. Because of environmental restriction, lead free solders as like a SnAgCu ternary system are being used widely. After soldering process, the formation and growth of intermetalic compounds(IMCs) are formed in the interface between solder and Cu substrate as follows isothermal temperature and time. In this studies, therefore, we investigated the effects of the Cu substrate thickness on the IMC formation and growth of Sn-40Pb/Cu and Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu/Cu solder joints, respectively. The effect of the Cu thickness in PCB Cu pad and pure Cu plate was analyzed as measuring of thickness of each IMC. After solder was soldered on PCB and Cu plate which have different Cu thickness, we measured the IMC thickness in solder joints respectively. Also we compared with the effectiveness of Cu thickness on the IMC growth. From these results, we calculated the activation energy.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.109-116
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• 2016

To achieve the fabrication of high-quality Ag-coated Cu particles through a wet chemical process, we reported herein pretreatment conditions using an ammonium-based mixed solvent for the removal of a $Cu_2O$ layer on Cu particles that were oxidized in air for 1 hr at $200^{\circ}C$ or for 3 days at room temperature. Furthermore, we discussed the results of post-Ag plating with respect to removal level of the oxide layer. X-ray diffraction results revealed that the removal rate of the oxide layer is directly proportional to the concentration of the pretreatment solvent. With the results of Auger electron spectroscopy using oxidized Cu plates, the concentrations required to completely remove 50-nm-thick and 2-nm-thick oxides within 5 min were determined to be X2.5 and X0.13. However, the optimal concentrations in an actual Ag plating process using Cu powder increased to X0.4 and X0.5, respectively, because the oxidation in powder may be accelerated and the complete removal of oxide should be tuned to the thickest oxide layer among all the particles. Back-scattered electron images showed the formation of pure fine Ag particles instead of a uniform and smooth Ag coating in the Ag plating performed after incomplete removal of the oxide layer, indicating that the remaining oxide layer obstructs heterogeneous nucleation and plating by reduced Ag atoms.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.811-816
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• 2006

The single layered magnetic thin films with anisotropic magnetoresistance behavior have advantage on micro integration due to their low cost in manufacturing. Although the conventional MCo (M=Cu, Ag) amorphous ribbons using a rapid solidification process have showed appropriate for magnetic property for bulk devices, they are not appropriate for micro-scale devices due to their brittleness. We prepared the thermal evaporated 100 nm-thick $Cu_{1-x}Co_x\;and\;Ag_{1-x}Co_x(x=0.1{\sim}0.7)$ films on silicon wafers and investigated the magnetic property of the as-depo films such as magnetization and magnetoresistance ratio. We confirmed that the maximum MR ratio of 1.4 and 2.6% at the external field of 0.5 Tesla in $CuCo_{30},\;AgCo_{40}$ films, respectively. Our result implies that AMR may be slightly less than those of the conventional CuCo and AgCo ribbons due to surface scattering, but their AMR ratio be enough for micro-scale application with easy integration compatibility for the process without surface oxidation.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2014

To investigate the plating properties of a diethylene glycol-based Ag immersion plating solution containing citric acid, silver immersion plating was performed in a range from room temperature to $50^{\circ}C$ using sputtered Cu specimens. The used Cu specimens possessed surface structure with large numbers of pinholes which were created with over-acid etching. The Ag immersion plating performed at $40^{\circ}C$ exhibited that the pinholes and copper surface were completely filled with Ag just after 5 min mainly due to galvanic displacement reaction, indicating the best plating properties. Subsequently, the surface morphology of Ag-coated Cu became rougher as the plating time increased to 30 min because of the deposition of silver nanoparticles created by chemical reduction in the solution. The specimen that its overall surface was covered with silver indicated the start of oxidation at temperature higher than around $50^{\circ}C$ in air as compared with pure Cu, indicating enhanced anti-oxidation properties.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.11 no.4 s.33
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• pp.43-48
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• 2004

Electromigration of Sn-3.5Ag-0.5Cu solder bumps was investigated with current densities of $3{\~}4{\times}10^4 A/cm^2$ at temperatures of $130{\~}160^{\circ}C$ using flip chip specimens which consisted of upper Si chip and lower Si substrate. Electromigration failure of the Sn-3.5Ag-0.5Cu solder bump occurred with complete consumption of Cu UBM and void formation at cathode side of the solder bump. The activation energies for electromigration of the Sn-3.5Ag-0.5Cu solder bump were measured as 0.61 eV at current density of $3{\times}10^4 A/cm^2$, 0.63 eV at $3.5{\times}10^4 A/cm^2$, and 0.77 eV at $4{\times}10^4 A/cm^2$, respectively.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2000

To make stacked chip packages far high-density packaging of memory chips used in workstations or PC severs, several lead-frames are to be connected vertically. Fer this purpose. Sn or Sn/Ag were electrochemically deposited on Cu lead-frames and their microstructures were examined by XRD and SEM. Then, two specimens were annealed at $250^{\circ}C$ for 10 min. and pressed to be joined. The shear stresses of joined lead-frames were measured fur comparison. In the case of Sn only, $Cu_3Sn$ was formed by the reaction of Sn and Cu lead-frames. In the case of Sn/Ag, besides $Cu_3Sn$. $Ag_3Sn$ was formed by the reaction of Sn and Ag. Compared to joined specimens made from Sn only, those made from Sn/Ag showed 1.2 times higher shear stress. This was attributed to the $Ag_3Sn$ phase formed at the joined interface.