Investigation of the short-time high-current behavior of vias manufactured in hybrid thick-film technology

In this contribution, the short-time high-current behavior of electrical interconnects (through-metalized vias) manufactured in thick-film technology is investigated. Such vias are reliable devices for small currents, but their behavior when high currents are applied for short times has not been fully understood. Therefore, in a four-wire-setup, short-time high-current pulses were applied to single vias and the resulting transient voltage drops were measured. Furthermore, an FEM-model was developed to simulate this voltage drops as well as the time-dependent temperature distributions inside of the vias. Input parameters were material properties and sample geometries. The good agreement between the measured and the simulated time-dependent voltage drops validated the model. The resulting temperature distributions are an appropriate engineering tool for the further development of vias with respect to reliability and high ampacity. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.