Organoclay Moisture Barrier for Moisture Protection of Plastic Microcircuit Components

Plastic encapsulated microcircuits use organic packaging material to protect integrated circuit dies and interconnects from environmental hazards. However because PEMs are non-hermetic its reliability in some harsh environments suffer from rapid moistureoutgassing, called popcorning. PolyComo Technologies proposes to use low moisture resins reinforced with organoclay to form nanocomposites that hinders the total moisture sensitivities of these PEM packages. Commercial and military PEM will benefit fromthis research because the development of a moisture insensitive coating will enable the long term storage of microelectronic components without expensive dessicant or enclosures and enabling the use of these components where ambient pressure is low.