"LaTIMA" an innovative test stand for thermal and electrical characterization of highly conductive metals, die attach, and substrate materials

This paper deals with the development of an innovative test stand for the measurement of thermal and electrical conductivity of metals, semiconductors, highly conductive die attaches and substrates using the steady state technique for thermal characterization and four-terminal sensing with pulse delta technique for electrical characterization. We present a systematic study of sintered silver in order to investigate the influence of sintering conditions on thermal and electrical properties. Several sintered silver samples have been prepared under sintering temperature variation between 200°C and 270°C and sintering pressure variation between 5 MPa and 25 MPa. The characterization results diversify up to 200% for thermal conductivity and up to 330% for electrical conductivity. The Wiedemann-France law describes the relationship between electrical and thermal conductivities for bulk metals. We proved that this law applies not only for bulk metal but also for porous sintered metal.