Dissolution kinetics and diffusivity of silver in glassy layers for hybrid microelectronics

Silver and palladium/silver compositions are widely used in hybrid microelectronics, as electrodes for dielectric layers and multilayers, terminations of thick film resistors and interconnections. Interactions between Ag and the adjacent films are known to affect the microcircuit performances. The present study is aimed at collecting data on the behavior of Ag-based films in contact with glassy layers. Most experiments were performed with a glass with composition 68.2 PbO:30.5 SiO2:1.3 Al2O3 wt%. Two different systems were analyzed. The first system consists of thick films prepared from a paste containing glass and either 3 or 15 wt% silver particles; both fine (spherical grains, 0.5-1 mum diameter) and coarse (flakes, 2-5 mum, < 1 μm thick) Ag powders were used for these pastes. The distribution of Ag in the film was studied with X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and fluorescence analysis. The results show that Ag floats on the glassy layer. Diffraction of X-rays generated by a synchrotron radiation source allowed us to study the kinetics of silver dissolution in the glass; this phenomenon is consistent with the Avrami theory, with an apparent activation energy E-dis = 0.69 +/- 0.04 eV. The second system analyzed, Ag-based terminations of glass layers fired at various peak temperatures, enabled us to obtain quantitative values for both Ag solid solubility (about 2.5 wt%) and Ag diffusion coefficients D-Ag(T). Typical values of D-Ag(850°C) are 30.3 +/- 11.9 10(-8) cm(2)/S; an apparent activation energy of the diffusion process is E-a = 0.6 +/- 0.1 eV.