title: Can zinc aluminate-titania composite be an alternative for alumina as microelectronic substrate?
abstract: Alumina, thanks to its superior thermal and dielectric properties, has been the leading substrate over several decades, for power and microelectronics circuits. However, alumina lacks thermal stability since its temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τf) is far from zero (-60 ppmK-1). The present paper explores the potentiality of a ceramic composite 0.83ZnAl2O4-0.17TiO2(in moles, abbreviated as ZAT) substrates for electronic applications over other commercially-used alumina-based substrates and synthesized using a non-aqueous tape casting method. The present substrate has τfof + 3.9 ppmK-1and is a valuable addition to the group of thermo-stable substrates. The ZAT substrate shows a high thermal conductivity of 31.3 Wm-1K-1(thermal conductivity of alumina is about 24.5 Wm-1K-1), along with promising mechanical, electrical and microwave dielectric properties comparable to that of alumina-based commercial substrates. Furthermore, the newly-developed substrate material shows exceptionally good thermal stability of dielectric constant, which cannot be met with any of the alumina-based HTCC substrates.
authors.affiliation: Materials Science and Technology Division, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, CSIR, Trivandrum 695019, India.
authors.forename: Satheesh Babu
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Roshni
authors.affiliation: Microelectronics Research Unit, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, 90014, Finland.
authors.forename: Mailadil Thomas
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Sebastian
authors.affiliation: Materials Science and Technology Division, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, CSIR, Trivandrum 695019, India.
authors.forename: Kuzhichalil Peethambharan
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Surendran