Thermal Transient Characteristics of Die Attach in High Power LED Package

The rapid advances in high power light sources and arrays as encountered in incandescent lamps have induced dramatic increases in die heat flux and power consumption at all levels of high power LED packaging. The lifetime of such devices and device arrays is determined by their temperature and thermal transients controlled by the powering and cooling, because they are usually operated under rough environmental conditions. The reliability of packaged electronics strongly depends on the die attach quality, because any void or a small delamination may cause instant temperature increase in the die, leading sooner or later to failure in the operation. Die attach materials have a key role in the thermal management of high power LED packages by providing the low thermal resistance between the heat generating LED chips and the heat dissipating heat slug. In this paper, thermal transient characteristics of die attach in high power LED package have been studied based on the thermal transient analysis using the evaluation of the structure function of the heat flow path. With high power LED packages fabricated by die attach materials such as Ag paste, solder paste and Au/Sn eutectic bonding, we have demonstrated characteristics such as cross-section analysis, shear test and visual inspection after shear test of die attach and how to detect die attach failures and to measure thermal resistance values of die attach in high power LED package. From the structure function oi the thermal transient characteristics, we could know the result that die attach quality of Au/Sn eutectic bonding presented the thermal resistance of about 3.5K/W. It was much better than those of Ag paste and solder paste presented the thermal resistance of about 11.514.2K/W and 4.44.6K/W, respectively.