Thermal analysis is valuable for the characterization of electronic materials and components, including printed circuit boards (PCB) and encapsulants. In the manufacture of printed circuit boards or flip-chip packaging, the issue of cure of the epoxy matrix and the dimensional characteristics of the epoxy-based materials becomes critical. It is essential to ensure that the degree of cure obtained by the epoxy materials is sufficiently high enough to ensure good stability and that the cure times are sufficiently rapid so that the processing time can be significantly reduced, thus providing a cost-savings.
This application note demostrates how various thermal analysis techniques (DSC, TGA, TMA and DMA) can be utlizized for the complete characterization of electronic materials to obtain valuable information such properties as: softening or Tg, completeness of cure, degree of cure, rate of cure, compositional analysis, degradation temperatures for stability assessment, expansivities, coefficients of thermal expansion, modulus (stiffness) and damping properties.