Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society

Spiders detect even tiny vibrations through their vibrational sensory organs. Leveraging their exceptional vibration sensing abilities, they can detect vibrations caused by prey or predators to plan attacks or perceive threats, utilizing them for survival. This paper introduces a nanoscale crack-based sensor mimicking the spider’s sensory organ. Inspired by the slit sensory organ used by spiders to detect vibrations, the sensor with the cracks detects vibrations and pressure with high sensitivity. By controlling the depth of these cracks, they developed a sensor capable of detecting external mechanical signals with remarkable sensitivity. This sensor achieves a gauge factor of 16,000 at 2% strain with an applied tensile stress of 10 N. With high signal-to-noise ratio, it accurately recognizes desired vibrations, as confirmed through various evaluations of external force and biological signals (speech pattern, heart rate, etc.). This underscores the potential of utilizing biomimetic technology for the development of new sensors and their application across diverse industrial fields.

Biomimetics, Mechanosensor, Crack sensor, Spider’s sensory organ, Vibration

In the trend of the multi-functionalization, miniaturization, and increased power output trends of flexible and stretchable electronic devices, the development of materials or structures with superior heat transfer characteristics has become a pressing issue. Traditional thermal interface materials (TIM) fail to meet the heat dissipation requirements of flexible and stretchable electronic devices, which must endure rapid bending, twisting, and stretching. To address this challenge, there is a demand for the development of TIM that simultaneously possesses high thermal conductivity and stretchability. This paper examines the research trends of liquid metal, carbon, and ceramic-based stretchable thermal interface materials and explores effective strategies for enhancing their thermal and mechanical properties.

Thermal interface materials, Flexible and stretchable electronic device, Thermal conductivity, Stretchability, Heat dissipation, Thermal management

Along with the high interest in electric vehicles and new renewable energy, there is a growing demand to apply lithium-ion batteries in the construction equipment industry. The capacity of heavy construction equipment that performs various tasks at construction sites is rapidly decreasing. Therefore, it is essential to accurately predict the state of batteries such as SOC (State of Charge) and SOH (State of Health). In this paper, the errors between actual electrochemical measurement data and estimated data were compared using the Dual Extended Kalman Filter (DEKF) algorithm that can estimate SOC and SOH at the same time. The prediction of battery charge state was analyzed by measuring OCV at SOC 5% intervals under 0.2C-rate conditions after the battery cell was fully charged, and the degradation state of the battery was predicted after 50 cycles of aging tests under various C-rate (0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5C rate) conditions. It was confirmed that the SOC and SOH estimation errors using DEKF tended to increase as the C-rate increased. It was confirmed that the SOC estimation using DEKF showed less than 6% at 0.2, 0.5, and 1C-rate. In addition, it was confirmed that the SOH estimation results showed good performance within the maximum error of 1.0% and 1.3% at 0.2 and 0.3C-rate, respectively. Also, it was confirmed that the estimation error also increased from 1.5% to 2% as the C-rate increased from 0.5 to 1.5C-rate. However, this result shows that all SOH estimation results using DEKF were excellent within about 2%.

Lithium-ion battery, Construction equipment, Kalman filter, Equivalent circuit model, State of Health (SOH)

Electronic products utilizing flexible devices experience harsh mechanical deformations in real-use environments. As a result, researches on the mechanical reliability of these flexible devices have attracted considerable interest among researchers. This study employed previous bending strain models and finite element analysis to predict the maximum bending strain of metal films deposited on flexible substrates. Bending experiments were simulated using finite element analysis with variations in the material and thickness of the thin films, and the substrate thickness. The results were compared with the strains predicted by existing models. The distribution of strain on the surface of film was observed, and the error rate of the existing model was analyzed during bending. Additionally, a modified model was proposed, providing mathematical constants for each case.

Bending strain, FE analysis, Metal thin film, Flexible substrate

The heating element utilizing the Joule heating generated when current flows through a conductor is widely researched and developed for various industrial applications such as moisture removal in automotive windshield, high-speed train windows, and solar panels. Recently, research utilizing heating elements with various nanostructures has been actively conducted to develop flexible heating elements capable of maintaining stable heating even under mechanical deformation conditions. In this study, flexible polyurethane possessing excellent flexibility was selected as the substrate, and silver (Ag) thin films with low electrical resistivity (1.6 μΩ-cm) were fabricated as the heating layer using magnetron sputtering. The 2D heating structure of the Ag thin films demonstrated excellent heating reproducibility, reaching 95% of the target temperature within 20 seconds. Furthermore, excellent heating characteristics were maintained even under mechanically deforming environments, exhibiting outstanding flexibility with less than a 3% increase in electrical resistance observed in repetitive bending tests (10,000 cycles, based on a curvature radius of 5 mm). This demonstrates that polyurethane/Ag planar heating structure bears promising potential as a flexible/wearable heating element for curved-shaped appliances and objects subjected to diverse stresses such as human body parts.

Joule heating, Planar heater, Magnetron sputtering, Sheet resistance

Recently, with the miniaturization and high integration of semiconductor chips, the bump bridge phenomenon caused by fine pitches is drawing attention as a problem. Accordingly, Cu pillar bump, which can minimize the bump bridge phenomenon, is widely applied in the semiconductor package industry for fine pitch applications. When exposed to a high-temperature environment, the thickness of the intermetallic compound (IMC) formed at the joint interface increases, and at the same time, Kirkendall void is formed and grown inside some IMC/Cu and IMC interfaces. Therefore, it is important to control the excessive growth of IMC and the formation and growth of Kirkendall voids because they weaken the mechanical reliability of the joints. Therefore, in this study, isothermal aging evaluation of Cu pillar bump joints with a CS (Cu+ Sn-1.8Ag Solder) structure was performed and the corresponding results was reported.

Cu pillar bump, Intermetallic compound, Kirkendall void, Aging, Reflow soldering

: The discovery of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at the interface of LaAlO₃ (LAO) and SrTiO₃ (STO) substrates has sparked significant interest, providing a foundation for cutting-edge research in electronic devices based on complex oxide heterostructures. However, conventional methods for producing LAO thin films, typically employing techniques like pulsed laser deposition (PLD) within physical vapor deposition (PVD), are associated with high costs and challenges in precisely controlling the La and Al composition within LAO. In this study, we adopted a cost-effective alternative approach—solution-based processing—to fabricate LAO thin films and investigated their electrical properties. By adjusting the concentration of the precursor solution, we varied the thickness of LAO films from 2 to 65 nm and determined the sheet resistance and carrier density for each thickness. After vacuum annealing, the sheet resistance of the conductive channel ranged from 0.015 to 0.020 Ω·sq⁻¹, indicating that electron conduction occurs not only at the LAO/STO interface but also into the STO bulk region, consistent with previous studies. These findings demonstrate the successful formation and control of 2DEG through solution-based processing, offering the potential to reduce process costs and broaden the scope of applications in electronic device manufacturing.

Complex oxide thin films, SrTiO₃, LaAlO₃, Two-dimensional electron gas, Solution-based process