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Development and Testing of Cold gas Sprayed Circuit Boards for

Power Electronics Applications
Eugen Rastjagaev, Jrgen Wilde
University of Freiburg, Institute for Microsystem Technology (IMTEK)
Department for Assembly and Packaging Technology
Georges-Koehler-Allee 103, 79110 Freiburg, eugen.rastjagaev@imtek.de
Bernhard Wielage, Thomas Grund, Sabine Kmmel
Technical University of Chemnitz, Institute for Materials Science
Department of composite materials
Erfenschlager Strae 73, 09125 Chemnitz

Abstract
Within the framework of the presented project, new mounting concepts for power electronics were implemented by applying Al/Cu coat systems to insulators by means of cold gas spraying (CGS). The layers sprayed with cold gas were
investigated and good material properties are observed. The applied metallizations show an extremely small porosity,
no thermally induced phase conversions or process-related oxides and a high adhesive strength. Also the processing of
assemblies with standard processes such as a soldering, adhesive bonding and heavy wire bonding is possible. The temperature shock stability of the new substrates was determined in temperature cycle experiments and it was compared
with the temperature shock stability of the DCB substrates. The substrates were tested actively but also passively in bicameral temperature shock chamber and in power cycling experiments at power electronic function samples. The accomplished reliability investigations showed that the characteristic lifetime of the cold gas sprayed substrates is
approximately 80% of the characteristic lifetime of the DCB substrates. These demonstrate that the substrates produced
in cold-gas technology can be used for power electronic applications.

Introduction

Metallised Al2O3 and AlN ceramics which must exhibit

strictly defined physical properties and satisfy reliability
requirements are normally utilised for power electronics
assemblies. Previously, these requirements could only be
used with the DCB-substrate technology (Direct Copper
Bonding). Mechatronics integration there is a search for
simple, flexible and cost-favourable mounting
technologies for mass applications in which partially
reduced properties can be accepted. In principle, the
thermal spraying processes can be utilised in order to
achieve flexible metallised coats on various surfaces.
Even on ceramic-metallic surfaces, cold gas spraying can
produce firmly adherent coats with physical properties
which are equivalent to those of the solid material.
Previous applications of the process concentrated on the
coating of ductile substrates with ductile spraying
consumables. In the present paper, Al2O3 ceramic plates
are coated with a multilayer aluminium/copper composite.
In which aluminium acts as the adhesion promoter
between the ceramic and the copper coat [1]. The regions
to be selectively coated with conductor structures are
defined by laser-cut, 1 mm thick steel masks. In this
respect, sixteen individual modules are produced in one
pass during the coating operation (Fig. 1). In analogy to
the copper layers in DCB substrates, the thickness of the
cold-gas-sprayed Al/Cu coat systems is 300 m.

Figure 1 Cold-gas sprayed Al/Cu metallization on

alumina substrate with dimensions of 138 190 0.63
mm3

1.1

Power electronics manufacture of

circuit carriers

Power electronics substrates manufactured by means of

DCB technology are widespread in these applications.
Quality characteristics of DCB substrates are a high thermal conductivity, a high temperature stability and a high
electric insulating capacity of the ceramic. The copper
metallisation will provide a high conductivity and currentcarrying capacity as well as good heat transfer to the ceramic. At the same time, the overall system must have a
coefficient of thermal expansion which is adapted to the

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devices integrated on the substrate. Figure 2 shows typical

cross section of a power electronic module.

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can be manufactured in an approximately pore free form.

The gas and oxide contents of the layers roughly correspond to the contents of the utilised original powders. Optimally deposited and heat-treated layers achieve the same
properties as those of the respective solid materials.
Table 1 shows the comparison between the material
properties of solid and cold-gas sprayed materials.

Figure 2 Cross section of a typical power module

1.2

Characteristics of thermal spraying

processes and of coats produced with
them

Cold gas spraying is a high-velocity thermal spraying

processes towards lower thermal energy proportions and
higher kinetic energy proportions in the process. A heated
carrier gas is brought to a supersonic velocity by
corresponding nozzle systems. The consumable in the
form of fine sprayed particles is accelerated towards the
surface to be coated which the sprayed particles strike, on
which they flatten out and to which they adhere. In this
respect, the particles are subjected to hardly any thermal
loads but strike the surface to be coated at a high velocity.
In this way, a firmly adherent coat arises in layers. The
coated substrate is not melted completely during this
operation. The coat adhesion is based on the effect that
the abrasive action of a particle impacting on a surface
changes into the adhesion of the particle as from a
material-dependent specific velocity [3]. Figure 3
represents the cold gas coating system which was used in
this study.

Figure 3 Cold-gas-spray-coating-system at Technical

University of Chemnitz
The mechanical, physical and chemical processes which
lead to this adhesion have not yet been described conclusively [4]. Investigations on ductile substrate materials
and powders showed metallurgically joined regions at the
particle/substrate interfaces. These may be attributed to
high temperature peaks due to extreme internal friction
and quasi-adiabatic conditions during impact of the particles [5, 6]. The produced coatings exhibit a low defect
density in comparison with conventional spray coats.
They have low residual stresses after heat treatment and

Table 1 Material properties of cold-gas sprayed materials

compared to solid material

Investigation results

2.1

Substrate manufacture

300 m thick Al/Cu coat systems with porosities under

1 % were produced on 630 m thick Al2O3 ceramics by
means of cold gas spraying (Fig. 4).

Figure 4 300 microns thick cold gas sprayed copper on

alumina with Al adhesive layer
The portion of the bonding promoting aluminium layer in
the total coat thickness is approx. 20 %. Figure 5 shows
the scanning electron micrograph of a ceramic coated on
both sides.

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Figure 5 SEM-image of cold gas spraying ceramic coated

on both sides with Al/Cu- composite
The minimum track widths and clearances attainable with
the CGS technology were established in a design rule
check. The coated substrate with the structures produced
for the checking of the design rules is shown on Figure 6.

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CGS aluminium but also to the natural degree of oxidation of the utilised aluminium powder which is transferred
into the coats in the form of oxide skins and creates additional interfaces. As expected, the thermal after-treatment
of the cold-gas-sprayed coats led to a lasting improvement
in the electric properties [7, 8]. The thermal treatment
caused in cold-formed materials diffusion, defects reduction or recrystallization [9]. The listed processes depend
on the length and temperature of treatment. Figure 7a
shows the relative improvement in electrical conductivity
as a function of treatment temperature. The cold-gassprayed materials were annealed for 2 hours in nitrogen
atmosphere. Due to a heat treatment at 350C for 2 h, the
specific electric resistance of the sprayed copper dropped
by approx. 25%, that of the sprayed aluminium by
approx. 12 % and that of the Al/Cu composite by approx.
36 %. This resulted in an average specific electric conductivity of the CGS Al/Cu metallisation of approx. 80 % in
comparison with DCB metallised copper coats. The observation of the electrical conductivity changes at different annealing times and temperatures shows that a few
minutes of annealing already improve the electrical conductivity of Al /Cu composite significantly (Fig. 7b).

Figure 7 Change of electrical conductivity of the CGS

metallizations as a function of treatment temperature (a)
and as a function of annealing time at different curing
temperatures (b)
Figure 6 Alumina ceramics with structured Al/Cu layer
to determine the design rules
Accordingly, the minimum track widths and track
distances are 250 m and 360 m respectively. The
average adhesive strength of cold-gas-sprayed aluminium
coats on the Al2O3 ceramics is 31 +/- 4 MPa. After a
subsequent heat treatment at 300C for 10 h, the adhesive
strength was doubled to 58 +/- 6 MPa on average.

2.2

Utilisation in power electronics

2.2.1 Electrical conductivity of cold gas sprayed

layers
The electric conductivities of the cold-gas-sprayed copper
and of the sprayed aluminium reach approx. 60 % and
20% of the theoretical electric conductivities of the respective solid materials. These relatively low electric
conductivities are attributed not only to an increased interfacial density in CGS coats especially in the case of the

Figure 7b shows, that after a thermal treatment at 305 C

and 355 C and within 10 minutes change the electrical
conductivity of the CGS-Al/Cu composite around 30%. In
addition, after annealing of the CGS metallization at
temperatures above 300 C and longer than 10 minutes,
no significant improvement in electrical conductivity was
observed.

2.2.2 Soldered interconnections and wire bonds

on CGS-Metallisations
On the Al/Cu metallisations which were cold-gas-sprayed
onto the Al2O3-substrates, the solderability and the wire
bondability were tested. Figure 8 makes clear that
standard power components like IGBTs and diodes can be
soldered onto the CGS substrates directly in the as
sprayed state or alternatively after thermal and
mechanical treatments.

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Figure 8 IGBT soldered onto the CGS substrates using

the vapour-phase soldering process; left: as sprayed substrate; right: after thermal and mechanical treatments

Figure 11 Damage image on an un-tempered CGS-layer

a) after the shear test and b) after tempering at 305 C for
2 h (400 m Al wire)

Examples of the produced heavy wire bond interconnections (300 m aluminium) on grinded and tempered CGScopper laers are exhibited in Fig. 9.

In Figure 12 a complete test circuit with soldered devices

and wire-bonded devices on a CGS-substrate is exhibited.

Figure 9 left: Scanning electron micrograph; right:

Macrograph of the bonded joints (300 m Al wire)
These wire-bond interconnections were produced with an
automated Orthodyne 360A wire bonder with standard
bond parameters used also for DCB substrates. The quality of the bonded interconnections was tested by means of
shear tests. In Figure 10 the shear strength of wire bonds
is exhibited which were produced with 400 m thick bond
wires on CGS metal.

Figure 12 Demonstration module with IGBT and diode

after the chip soldering and wire bonding

2.2.3 Thermal characteristics of the CGS

substrates
Special test modules were assembled in order to
characterise the thermal management performance of the
novel substrates. To that purpose chip diodes with an area
of 5.6 mm 5.6 mm were soldered onto the carriers in
order to produce the dissipated power Pth . The backside
of the modules was directly cooled with DI water. In
Figure 13 the scheme and the accomplished test assembly
for the measurement of the thermal resistance are
displayed.

Figure 10 Shear strength of 400 m aluminium wire

bonds on CGS-copper as a function of the annealing
temperature prior to bonding
The treatment temperature was varied in a range from 150
C to 400 C for 2 hours. An optical inspection after the
shear test reveals that for tempered CGS-Substrates the
copper layer partly fails by cohesive failure in most cases
(Fig. 11a). From annealing temperatures above 250 C on
the bonds on CGS metal layers achieved bond strengths
similar to DCB copper metallisations (Fig. 11b).

Figure 13 Measurement of the thermal resistance; left:

scheme; right: test device
The thermal resistance Rth was taken as a measure of the
thermal management capability of the substrates. It is
computed from the difference between the diode temperature Td and the temperature on the water-side of the module Ts and the dissipated power of the chip. Alternatively

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the Rth was computed with reference to the temperature of

the cooling water Tw (Eq. 1).

Rth, js

(Td  Ts )
; Rth, jw
Pth

(Td  Tw )
Pth

(1)

The temperature of the power diode was taken up with a

Pt-100 thermal resistor, which was mounted directly onto
the power diode using a thermally conductive adhesive.
The temperature on the backside of the substrate was
measured with a CuNi/Cu-thermocouple which was
formed by contacting a CuNi wire to the backside copper
film of the substrate. The flow rate of the coolant is a
variable factor which affects the thermal resistance in the
direct cooling experiments. It was measured with a flow
rate sensor and the Rth-values were taken up as a function
of the flow rate. Fig. 14 shows that the Rth with a
reference to the cooling water temperature Tw decreases
with increasing flow-rate. When the reference point for
Rth ist he backside of the module with a temperature Ts ,
the Rth will increase, because the heat spreading zone will
shrink when the heat transfer coefficient at the substrate is
increased by stronger coolant flow. Comparing the Rthvalues of DCB- and CGS-modules directly (Fig. 14) it
becomes evident that the thermal resistance Rht of CGS is
just 13 % higher than for DCB-modules. This is valid at a
flow rate of 3 l/min.

thermal stresses. On these substrates cleavage between

metal and ceramic material will be observed from approximately 250 temperature shocks on. The second test
of circuits produced with CGS- and DCB-substrates was
active power cycling. These were controlled in a manner
to achieve force temperature transitions between 35C
and 135C at a cycling time of 1 min. The DCB-modules
were actually operated with higher electrical power dissipation as the CGS-modules. The reason for the implementation of tests at constant temperature was compliance to
the thermo-mechanical failure criteria for assembly techniques, which are based on a constant temperature swing.
This means that the solder and bond connections on CGS
module may fail earlier by operation of this module with
the same power dissipation as the DCB module. Due to
practical reasons for the power-cycling test CGS-modules
both with soldered as well as with adhesively bonded devices were used. Fig. 15 exhibits thermographic images of
the CGS-modules during these tests.

Figure 15 Thermographic image of CGS-based modules

with soldered devices during power-cycling: left: during
cooling to 35 C; right: during thermal shock at 135 C
In the power cycling test was an electrical failure of IGBT
devices occurred. Assuming a Weibull-curve the
characteristic lifetime of the soldered CGS-Modules was
approximately 57.000 cycles and that of the adhesively
bonded ones was 253.000 cycles. The soldered DCBModules which served as a benchmark tolerated 72.000
cycles up to 63 % failures (Fig. 16).
Figure 14 Comparison of the thermal resistances Rht of
DCB- and CGS-modules as a function of the cooling
water flow-rate

2.2.4 Reliability tests

Passive temperature cycling tests were performed in a
temperature chamber (VTSCH). The test conditions
were temperature holding points at -40 C and +150 C
with soak times of 20 min each. The temperature transitions were performed at average rates of 63 K/min. Single-side copper-coated CGS-substrates typically will fail
after 100 temperature shock cycles due to de-lamination
of the CGS-metal from the Al2O3-substrate. In order to
prevent the de-lamination the design of the substrates was
modified. The improved substrates were provided with an
increased aluminium adhesion layer, onto which the
smaller copper layer is deposited. So a step-wise transition is achieved at the edges which will decrease local

Figure 16 Weibull-diagram for the time-to-failure of

CGS- and DCB-based modules in power-cycling between
35 and 135 C.
So the characteristic lifetime of the high-power assemblies on CGS reaches 80% of that of the DCB-based stan-

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dard modules. As an interesting result we found that the

lifetime of the adhesively bonded CGS-modules
(Ag-epoxy) is higher that that of SAC-soldered devices by
a factor of four.

Summary and conclusions

A new process for the metallisation of power substrates

with aluminium and copper has been developed using the
cold-gas-spray technology. With mechanical masking, it
is possible to generate metal patterns up to 500 m thickness and down to 250 m width on one or both substrate
sides. Generalizing, the electrical, thermal and mechanical
properties of the layers reach up to 80 % of the respective
properties of Al2O3-based DCB. By working out appropriate design rules, for the Al/Cu metal edges, the thermal
cycling stability of the bare substrates was increased significantly. It was possible to solder IGBT and diode chips
onto the substrates and to wire-bond these using standard
processes which are established for DCB. After suitable
surface treatment and annealing, the Al wire bonds were
almost equivalent to DCB regarding the mechanical properties. For the preliminary module testing with power cycling, CGS substrates with IGBTs and diodes were assembled using a highly conductivity adhesive. The tested
substrates failed after 160.000 to 293.000 cycles with a
T=100 K. This is equivalent to a relative characteristic
lifetime of the soldered joints on CGS-substrats of 80 %
of the number of cycles to (63 %) failure on DCBs. Also
functional modules were built up using novel insulation
systems like anodized aluminium and CGS.

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[3] Schmidt, T.; Gartner, F.; Assadi, H.; Kreye, H.: Development of a generalized parameter window for
cold spray deposition. In: Acta Materialia 54 (2006),
Nr. 3, S. 729-742.
[4] Wielage, B.; Grund, T.; Rupprecht, C.; Kummel, S.:
New method for producing power electronic circuit
boards by cold-gas spraying and investigation of
adhesion mechanisms. In: Surface and Coatings
Technology 205 (2010), Nr. 4, S. 1115-1118.
[5] Borchers, C.; Gartner,F.; Stoltenhoff, T.; Kreye, H.:
Microstructural bonding features of cold sprayed
face centered cubic metals. In: Journal of Applied
Physics 96 (2004), Nr. 8, S. 4288-4292.
[6] Wielage, B.; Wank, A.; Podlesak, H.; Grund, T.:
High-Resolutional Microstructural Investigations of
Interfaces between Light Metal Alloy Substrates and
Cold Gas Sprayed Coatings. In: Journal of Thermal
Spray Technology 15 (2006), Nr. 2, S. 280-283.
[7] Hall, A. C.; Cook, D. J.; Neiser, R. A.; Roemer, T. J.;
Hirschfeld, D. A.: The effect of a simple annealing
heat treatment on the mechanical properties of coldsprayed aluminium. In: Journal of Thermal Spray
Technology 15 (2006), Nr. 2, S. 233-238.
[8] Calla, E.; McCartney, D. G.; Shipway, P. H.: Effect
of heat treatment on the structure and properties of
cold sprayed copper. In: International Thermal Spray
Conference Proceedings (2005), S. 170-176.
[9] A.K. Sinha, Physical Metallurgy Handbook,
McGraw-Hill, New York, 2003

Acknowledgement

The IGF Project 15.441 B / DVS No. 10.050 of the research association "Forschungsvereinigung Schweien
und verwandte Verfahren e. V. des DVS, Aachener Strae
172, 40223 Dsseldorf" was, on the basis of a resolution
of the German Bundestag, promoted by the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Technology via AiF within
the framework of the programme for the promotion of
joint industrial research and development (IGF).

References

[1] Marx, S.; Paul, A.; Kohler, A.; Huttl, G.: Cold spraying: Innovative layers for new applications. In: Journal of Thermal Spray Technology 15 (2006), Nr. 2,
S. 177-183.
[2] Lutz, J.: Aufbau- und Verbindungstechnik von Leistungsbauelementen. In: Halbleiter-Leistungsbauelemente. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin
Heidelberg (2006), S. 269-318.

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