Deep ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) have a wide range of applications such as water treatment, medical diagnostics, medical device sterilization and gas sensing. The internal quantum efficiency of UVB and UVC LEDs is extremely low. Added to this is the high refractive index of the sapphire substrate. The electrical input power is converted to more than 95% to heat. Typically, ceramic packages of alumina with metal core or aluminum nitride are used. These promise a minimized thermal resistance. Comparative thermal simulations show that even Si with slightly lower thermal conductivity of 150 W / mK compared to aluminum nitride with 180 to 200 W / mK does not necessarily impair thermal management. From the thermal and optical calculations, basic information was extracted that forms the basis of the Si package layout. The advantage of the Si packing due to the possibility of integrating functional components has been worked out. An optimized Si package is presented that meets in particular the requirements of the assembly and packaging technology of UVB and UVC LEDs. The process technology was designed and implemented. The first samples with integrated protection diode, an optimized reflector and an optically adjusted single Fresnel lens are presented. The Si packages are designed for the flip-chip technology of UV LEDs with SnAg soldering, thermo-compression or thermosonic bonding and silver sintering. Furthermore, an outlook is given on the possibilities of an encapsulating technology to improve the light extraction.
The usage of UV LEDs is getting attractive for application such as phototherapy, plant growth, and disinfection due to the wavelength selective, narrow-band emission and a high potential for miniaturization of LED devices. Besides these benefits, the demands on optical power and long-term stability for these applications can often be well satisfied. For UVB LEDs most promising applications are in the field of medical skin therapy and novel concepts of horticulture and plant growth (irradiation of plants for the generation of phytamines or to reduce hormone-like mixtures). UVC applications focus on disinfection of air, surfaces and water at 265 nm or 280 nm. Each application field requires an individual UV dose, which is connected with the optical power output of the LED, and thus the number of LEDs and their long term stability. Typical doses for skin irradiation is 20 mJ/cm2 at 310 nm and for water disinfection 20-60 mJ/cm2 at 280 nm depending which target reduction factor log reduction of germicides is required. In this work a discussion on different factors influencing the reliability of LED modules, summarizing several years of research in this field will be given. Degradation effects are shown depending on LED design itself as well as the device assembly architecture including different mounting techniques. The most promising assembly technique was tested by a sample series of twice 400 single LED packages with a total yield of 87.7 % after mounting of UVB LEDs in single LED cases, cascading to an array on a main board by secondary soldering and burn-in of 48 hour at 50mA. In total 4% of the yield loss results by soldering issues of the LED on submount as well as another 8 % yield loss was measured after cascading of single LED packages on main board. Due to the burn-in process additional twenty UVB LEDs were lost. These reliability issues will be discussed using selected “state-of-the-art” LED device structures and examples of testing these LED devices in UV lighting lamp systems built at OSA opto Light will be given.
Higher optical power and higher UV doses come along with a higher operation temperature of UV LED based light sources. Silver sintered pastes offer a robust lead-free alternative to solder pastes increasing the lifetime of the device and enabling higher heat dissipation. Due to the design of UV LEDs, they have to be connected to a heat spreading submount by flip chip joining. Well established processes are flip chip soldering and thermal compression bonding. However, both methods do not achieve optimal heat dissipation in practice. Solder joining material offers a thermal conductivity in the range of 50-60 W/mK which can be further reduced by voids or uncovered areas. Gold contacts for thermal compression bonding offer excellent thermal conductivity of 320 W/mK, but show a maximum coverage of 50- 70%. Silver sinter paste adapted to the UV LED contact system, is a promising alternative flip chip joining material. In order to evaluate different joining methods, UV LED devices were assembled by thermal compression bonding, diffusion bonding, soldering and sintering and compared according to, thermal resistivity, optical-electrical and mechanical behavior and reliability issues. In addition, different silver sinter pastes were tested and their thermal resistivity was adjusted via processing parameters (pressurization, sintering temperature and time). For pressureless approaches the thermal conductivity and layer thickness are in the range of solder material or below. Using pressure for sintering, several advantages will be introduced. The interconnection thickness can be adjusted to be as thin as possible (below 5 micron), which enhanced the heat dissipation. A thin sintered layer of a few microns shows a lower shrinkage and a better adhesion to the joining partners. The thermal conductivity can be enhanced as well. After sintering, the silver interconnection layer is thermally stable up to 800 °C. These facts speak for sintering pastes as a real alternative for UV LED assembly.
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