Epoxy Molding Compound for Electronic Packaging: Impact of Inorganic Filler Type and Geometry

Abstract Technological advancements have made environmental concerns critical, especially in the semiconductor industry. Bio-epoxy application in epoxy molding compounds (EMCs) offers a sustainable solution. While EMC fillers are extensively studied to enhance performance for advanced integrated circuits (ICs), direct comparison of common filler types specifically within bio-epoxy remains underexplored. Thus, the present study focuses on comparing the effects of different fillers, which are aluminium nitride (AlN), aluminium oxide (Al2O3), barium sulfate (BaSO4), fused silica (SiO2) and hexagonal-boron nitride (hBN) on the properties of bio-epoxy. Their impact on EMCs-related properties such as viscosity, thermal properties, and electrical properties was studied. The results indicate that properties like thermal conductivity, CTE and dielectric constant were affected by the intrinsic properties of the filler, whereas viscosity and Tg were mainly influenced by filler size. Furthermore, hBN was identified as the most promising filler for EMCs application due to its high thermal conductivity (0.80 W m-1 k-1) , low dielectric constant (3.98 at 1 MHz) and CTE (40 ppm/ °C), despite its high viscosity. This article relates the structure-properties relationship of different types of fillers to the EMCs properties, offering insights into the filler's impact on EMCs performance.