Material characterization of high dielectric constant polymer-ceramic composite for embedded capacitor to RF application

Abstract

Embedded capacitor technology can improve electrical performance and reduce assembly cost compared with traditional discrete capacitor technology. Polymer-ceramic composites have been of great interest as embedded capacitor material because they combine the processability of polymers with the desired electrical properties of ceramics. A novel nano-structure polymer-ceramic composite with very high dielectric constant (/spl epsiv//sub r//spl sim/150, a new record for the highest reported /spl epsiv//sub r/ value for a nano-composite) has been developed in previous work. RF application of embedded capacitors requires that the insulating material have high dielectric constant at high frequency (GHz), low leakage current, high breakdown voltage and high reliability. A set of electrical tests have been conducted in this work to characterize the properties of the in-house developed novel high dielectric constant polymer-ceramic nano-composite. Results show that this material has a fairly high dielectric constant in the RF range, low electrical leakage and high breakdown voltage. An 85/85 TH aging test has been performed and has shown that this novel high-k material has good reliability. An embedded capacitor prototype with capacitance density of 35 nF/cm has been manufactured using this nano-composite with spin coating technology. This novel nano-composite can be used for integral capacitors in RF applications.