Fretting corrosion studies of an extrinsic conducting polymer and tin interface

Novel contact connector materials such as conducting polymers are becoming available which improve performance and enable further miniaturisation. Studies of a polymer-tin interface have been carried out to characterise contact resistance performance under fretting conditions. Degradation mechanisms have been identified using contact resistance measurements and surface analysis tools. These mechanisms have been shown to be different to those found in the tin-tin interface. The polymer-tin interface performs significantly better than a clean tin-tin interface, requiring more than three times the number of fretting cycles to fail (attaining 200 m/spl Omega/). The study shows that debris is not deposited at the end of the wear track as in a tin-tin interface. Additionally, once the contact resistance attains high values, the polymer-tin interface recovers to low values. The elastic contact is proposed as an advantageous characteristic of conducting polymers which can be used to eliminate fretting at the contact interface.