Polymer film deposition with fine pitch openings by stencil printing

It is confirmed that stencil printing with a novel developed printable polyimide paste can be used for polymer film deposition on LSI wafers. A thick polyimide film with openings for solder ball bumping can be deposited on all of the LSIs on a wafer by stencil printing at one time. This stencil printing process does not need an expensive lithography process, providing cost-effective wafer-level chip scale packages (WLCSPs). In this study, a novel polyimide paste was tailored to have a higher thixotropy ratio than conventional printable polyimide materials. The novel printable polyimide paste shows that the viscosity ratio of more than 3.5 at the shear rate of 1 to 10 s⁻¹ and that the viscosity increases rapidly after the shear rate is lowered. Fine spaces of 40 μm between 250 μm openings were obtained for 10 μm thick polyimide films on Si wafers. It has been also confirmed that the new paste shows the variation range of 30 μm at the opening size of 385 μm within 100 continuously printed wafers. Even after the new paste was shear-thinned repeatedly, rheological behavior of the new paste was not changed. This robustness leads to higher efficiency of the materials for mass-producing. From the reliability viewpoint of the printed polyimide films, no peelings were observed on plasma-CVD SiN films after the pressure cooker test under the condition of 127 °C and 0.25 MPa with the humidity of 100% for 300 h. The optimal stencil printing process using the novel developed paste will lead to significant cost reduction of a patterned polymer deposition process. Finally, WLCSPs using the stencil printing of the new polyimide paste have been demonstrated for SRAM LSIs on 8-in. wafers.     

Design and analysis of a folded Fresnel Zone Plate antenna

Based on the Kirchhoff-Huygens diffraction theory, a simple analytical method of a planar folded Fresnel zone-plate (FZP), that is the case when a planar reflector is placed behind the zone plates, has been developed. According to the numerical calculation results, the design procedure of the FZP antenna has been presented, and its focusing characteristics and gain-optimized conditions have been discussed. The variations of the focal field distribution with the antenna parameters such as zone numbers, focal length and antenna diameter and the radiation power patterns of the FZP have been simulated numerically. To take a good balance of both receiving and transmitting antennas, at 60GHz operating frequency, the focal length should be designed as a half of the antenna diameter and the zone number should be from 10 to 15. The results in this work show that the folded FZP has good focal characteristics and off-axis performance, and its antenna gain can be optimized by the suitable antenna parameter design. The possibility of applying the folded FZP as a low cost and high gain antenna without strict manufacturing requirement for millimeter-wave communications has been shown.     

主轴转速对半导体芯片切割品质的影响

针对目前大量使用的有机材料基板芯片和使用量相对较少的铜板基板芯片，分别设计了一组实验，并对由实验切割出来的芯片的主要评价项目逐项进行了检测，明确了主轴转速对两种芯片的外形尺寸误差、芯片的喇叭口现象、切断面的角度误差、崩碎坑的数量和大小、表面粗糙度等的影响；得出了不管是哪一种基板的芯片，出现不合格的主要是崩碎坑指标这一结论。通过分析和比较，得出了实际使用的主轴转速不宜低于15000r／min这一对于高速切割机的设计和切割工艺的制定具有重要参考价值的结论。     

Formation and Transformation of Cubic ZrO2 Solid Solutions in the System ZrO2—Al2O3

In the system ZrO₂-Al₂O₃, cubic ZrO₂ solid solutions containing up to 40 mol% Al₂O₃ crystallize at low temperatures from amorphous materials prepared by the simultaneous hydrolysis of zirconium and aluminum alkoxides. The values of the lattice parameter, a, increase linearly from 0.5095 to 0.5129 nm with increasing Al₂O₃ content. At higher temperatures, the solid solutions transform into tetragonal ZrO₂ and α-Al₂O₃. Pure ZrO₂ crystallizes in the tetragonal form at 415° to 440°C.     

Preparation and properties of sulfonated ETFE‐g‐polyvinyltoluene membranes for application in fuel cells

A new polymer electrolyte membrane prepared by radiation grafting of vinyltoluene into poly(ethylene‐co‐tetrafluoroethylene) (ETFE) film and subsequent sulfonation was developed for application in fuel cells. The effect of grafting condition on the degree of grafting was investigated in detail. Results indicated that the degree of grafting can be controlled over a wide range. The grafted films were sulfonated in a chlorosulfonic acid solution to obtain the polymer electrolyte membranes, which were characterized with respect to their use in fuel cells. It is concluded that the substituted methyl group on the vinyltoluene can improve the chemical stability of the resulting membranes, and the crosslinked ETFE‐g‐poly(vinyltoluene‐co‐divinylbenzene) membranes can be proposed for the future development of alternative low‐cost and high‐performance membranes for fuel cells. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 2661–2667, 2006     

Purification of steryl esters from soybean oil deodorizer distillate

Soybean oil deodorizer distillate (SODD) contains steryl esters in addition to tocopherols and sterols. Tocopherols and sterols have been industrially purified from SODD but no purification process for steryl esters has been developed. SODD was efficiently separated to low b.p. substances (including tocopherols and sterols) and high b.p. substances (including 11.2 wt% DAG, 32.1 wt% TAG, and 45.4 wt% steryl esters) by molecular distillation. The high b.p. fraction is referred to as soybean oil deodorizer distillate steryl ester concentrate (SODDSEC). We attempted to purify steryl esters after a lipase-catalyzed hydrolysis of acylglycerols in SODDSEC. Screening of industrially available lipases indicated that Candida rugosa lipase was most effective. Based on the study of several factors affecting hydrolysis, the reaction conditions were determined as follows: ratio of SODDSEC/water, 1∶1 (w/w); lipase amount, 15 U/g reaction mixture; temperature, 30°C. When SODDSEC was agitated for 24 h under these conditions, acylglycerols were almost completely hydrolyzed and the content of steryl esters did not change. However, study with a mixture of steryl oleate/trilinolein (1∶1, w/w) indicated that about 20% of constituent FA in steryl esters were exchanged with constituent FA in acylglycerols. Steryl esters in the oil layer obtained by the SODDSEC treatment with lipase were successfully purified by molecular distillation (purity, 97.3%; recovery, 87.7%).     

Stereoregular oligomers of methyl methacrylate

Summary Packed column SFC has been found suitable for the rapid and detailed analysis of the isotactic and syndiotactic oligomers of MMA, when the temperature gradient technique was applied and the modifier was employed. Oligomer components from trimer to 20-mer separated completely. The heptamer fraction collected three times by SFC gave the ¹H NMR spectrum of satisfactorily high S/N ratio; the spectrum agreed well with that of the standard sample. Separation by tacticity as well as by molecular weight was observed for the SFC of a mixture of the isotactic and syndiotactic oligomers. The isotactic oligomers had longer retention time than the syndiotactic oligomers of the corresponding degree of polymerization. Part 3: cf. Ute K. Nishimura T, Hatada K, Polym J (1989) 21: 1027     

The effects of external stress on the cubic-tetragonal transformation in rapidly quenched ZrO2-Y2O3

The effects of the external stress on the displacive cubic (c) to tetragonal (t) transformation, taking place during rapid quenching of ZrO₂-Y₂O₃ alloys by a hammer-anvil unit, were examined through the statistical analysis of the crystallography of the product phases. The initially formed c-phase had no strong texture with respect to the stress direction. However, specific t variants among crystallographically equivalent ones were formed preferentially. From these observations, it is concluded that the applied stress plays an important role on the deformation to change the lattice during the c t transformation.     

Chemical and Histological Characterization of Raw Muscle from Soft and Hard Crabs of Snow Crab Chionoecetes opilio

ABSTRACT: Chemical analysis showed soft snow crab muscle to have a higher water content and a lower protein content than hard crab muscle. Histological observations revealed frequent occurrences of disintegrated regions in muscle fibers and pericellular connective tissue of soft snow crab muscle tissue. Salinity of the free body fluid recovered from the meropodites of the soft snow crab was significantly higher than that of the hard snow crab. Sensory evaluation revealed differences in texture and taste between soft and hard crabs, which corresponded well to their compositional and histological differences.     

Experimental study to control the insertion resistance of internal medical instrument using magnetic field oscillation

We present a new method to reduce the insertion resistance for internal medical instruments by means of vibration. A rotating permanent magnet generates an oscillated magnetic field and vibrates the internal medical instruments from outside of the body. We investigated the relation between the frequency of vibration and the insertion resistance with a pin on flat test system in vitro. As a result, vibration is effective to reduce the friction and it is possible to keep a smooth insertion by vibration.