Overmolded Substrate on Aluminum Metal Backing for Harsh Environment Applications

Abstract

Demand for high-temperature electronics in the automotive industry increases daily with the increasing number of electronics going into under-the-hood locations. Along with keeping costs low and reliability high while the electronics are being subjected to environments seeing up to 150oC and beyond, new technologies and methods of production have made there way into the market. Current designs of transmission controller modules and transfer case controller modules have multipart designs that protect the PC board from the environments. Also, with the increase in the number of flip chip packages being implemented into board PC board design in under-the-hood applications, different techniques have been used to increase reliability. Underfill materials were the first step of increasing these packages but introduced another step, however a required one for reliability, in production. The effects of applying underfill techniques to overmold the entire PC board to increase reliability are mostly unknown and there is a little information provided to the public about this overmolding approach. This research looks into the quality and production issues of the overmolding process while also looking at the reliability effects. Accelerated life testing will be done on the different material combinations and the outcome of the tests will provide a clearer understanding of the overmolding process and its enhancing capabilities to component reliability.