Thermal properties of diamond/copper composite material

Thermal considerations are becoming increasingly important for the reliabilities of the electronics parts as the electronics technologies make continuous progress such as the higher output power of laser diodes or the higher level of integration of ICs. For this reason the desire for improving thermal properties of materials for electronics component parts is getting stronger and the material performance has become a critical design consideration for packages. To meet the demands for a high performance material for heat spreader materials and packages, a new composite material composed of diamond and copper was successfully manufactured under high pressure and high temperature. The effects of diamond particle sizes and the volume fractions of diamond on both thermal conductivity and the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) were investigated. The thermal conductivity of the composite material was dependent on both the particle size and the volume fraction of diamond, while the CTE was dependent only on the volume fraction of diamond. At the higher diamond volume fraction, the experimentally obtained thermal conductivities of the composite materials were above the theoretically expected values and the experimentally obtained CTE were between the two theoretical Kerner lines. This may be due to the fact that at the higher diamond volume fraction the diamond particles are closely packed to form bondings between each particle. The composite of diamond and copper have a potential for a heat spreading substrate with high performance and high reliability because not only its thermal conductivity is high but its coefficient of thermal expansion can be tailored according to a semiconductor material of electronics devices. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.