The influence of solder volume and pad area on Sn–3.8Ag–0.7Cu and Ni UBM reaction in reflow soldering and isothermal aging

This paper examines various aspects of SAC (Sn–3.8Ag–0.7Cu wt.%) solder and UBM interactions which may impact interconnection reliability as it scales down. With different solder joint sizes, the dissolution rate of UBM and IMC growth kinetics will be different. Solder bumps on 250, 80 and 40 μm diameter UBM pads were investigated. The effect of solder volume/pad metallization area (V/A) ratio on IMC growth and Ni dissolution was investigated during reflow soldering and solid state isothermal aging. Higher V/A ratio produced thinner and more fragmented IMC morphology in SAC solder/Ni UBM reflow soldering interfacial reaction. Lower V/A ratio produced better defined IMC layer at the Ni UBM interface. When the ratio of V/A is constant, the IMC morphology and growth trend was found to be similar. After 250 h of isothermal aging, the IMC growth rate of the different bump sizes leveled off. No degradation in shear strength was observed in these solder bump after 500 h of isothermal aging.     

Suppressing Ion Migration across Perovskite Grain Boundaries by Polymer Additives

Passivation of organometal halide perovskites with polar molecules has been recently demonstrated to improve the photovoltaic device efficiency and stability. However, the mechanism is still elusive. Here, it is found that both polymers with large and small dipole moment of 3.7 D and 0.6 D have negligible defect passivation effect on the MAPbI₃ perovskite films as evidenced by photothermal deflection spectroscopy. The photovoltaic devices with and without the polymer additives also have comparable power conversion efficiencies around 19%. However, devices with the additives have noticeable improvement in stability under continuous light irradiation. It is found that although the initial mobile ion concentrations are comparable in both devices with and without the additives, the additives can strongly suppress the ion migration during the device operation. This contributes to the significantly enhanced electrical-field stress tolerance of the perovskite solar cells (PVSCs). The PVSCs with polymer additives can operate up to −2 V reverse voltage bias which is much larger than the breakdown voltage of −0.5 V that has been commonly observed. This study provides insight into the role of additives in perovskites and the corresponding device degradation mechanism.     

Fresnel-integral approximation

In diffraction analysis, an approximation to K_-(x)=1/(√π)e^ix(2)+iπ/4∫_x ^∞e^-it(2) dt, (0-(x), suitable for computation with a hand-held computer, such as the HP-288     

Application of anisotropic EBG for suppressing common-mode resonances in CPW-to-CPS transitions

The phenomenon of common-mode radiation limits the in-band performance of balanced transmission lines such as the coplanar strip (CPS). When such transmission lines are measured single-endedly, by connecting them between practical baluns/transitions, resonances in the frequency response are observed owing to common-mode propagation. It is proposed, and demonstrated for the first time, that an electromagnetic-bandgap ground (EBG) method can help to suppress the unwanted propagation of common-modes along balanced transmission lines.     

Nanotrenches Induced by Catalyst Particles on ZnSe Surfaces

Nanotrenches are induced by thermal annealing Au droplets on ZnSe surfaces. High-resolution scanning electron microscopy studies of the nanotrench structures reveal that the preferred migration directions of the catalyst droplets are along the direction family. On a ZnSe(111)B surface, each of the trenches is along one of the six directions while on a nonvicinal ZnSe(100) surface, the trenches are along a pair of antiparallel directions. Based on the results obtained from atomic force microscopy surface profiling and electron energy-loss spectroscopy chemical analysis techniques, a model is proposed to describe the possible formation mechanisms of the␣observed nanotrenches. The highly parallel nanotrenches induced on the Au/ZnSe(100) structure as revealed in this study are potentially useful as a template for in situ fabrication of ordered one-dimensional nanostructures (such as nanowires) of many materials.     

Binary-Code-Allocation Scheme in DS-CDMA Systems

In this paper, we consider a simple binary-transmitter adaptation in direct-sequence code-division multiple-access systems. We propose a binary-code-allocation scheme for reducing the multiple-access interference (MAI). In this scheme, a user is given an orthogonal binary sequence set. By choosing a better sequence from the sequence set, the user can maximize his/her signal to interference ratio. We examine the scheme analytically by both exact analysis and approximation in equal-power synchronous cases. Theoretically, it is found that the scheme can significantly reduce the MAI. It only involves a few bits of feedback information for the transmitter to adjust the sequences. The scheme can also be modified for multiuser adaptation in asynchronous channels. In a multiuser adaptation, simulations show that the users would have a significantly improved performance against the MAI, and the system throughput can also be increased. It is shown that this binary-code-allocation scheme is a simple, widely applicable, and robust binary-sequence-adaptation scheme     

Parallel coupled-line bandpass filter with branch-line shape for g-band frequency

A parallel coupled-line planar bandpass filter (BPF) with branch-line shape using coplanar waveguide technology on GaAs substrate is presented. The unit parallel coupled-line BPF utilises a parallel coupled-line resonator with an open-ended stub which has suppression response of spurious band. Four unit parallel coupled-line BPFs are integrated with branch-line shape and open-circuit stubs on input and output ports are also integrated for improvement of rejection performance. The proposed fourth-order filter was fabricated on GaAs substrate with dielectric thickness of 50 m and gold thickness of 1.2 mum. The fabricated fourth-order BPF shows a 3 dB bandwidth from 177 to 209 GHz frequency range with insertion loss of 6.5 dB, rejection of 38 dB and return loss better than 12 dB. It has a high resolution fractional bandwidth of 17%.