No-Heat Solder Replacement - Supercooled Liquid Metals (Printed Electronics USA 2019)

Supercooled Liquid Metal Particles separate the use of solder from the heat needed to melt it. The particles are micro-sized capsules comprised of liquid metal solder inside a thin flexible shell. These capsules allows the metal solder to stay liquid at room temperature and below, far cooler than the point where it normally should be solid. Unlike current industry manufacturing practices that require significant heat in order to use metal solder or cure adhesives, NO heat is needed. Breaking the capsule shell allows the liquid metal inside to flow out, which then solidifies in a few seconds to create a full metallic interconnect. Using significantly lower temperatures in electronics manufacturing greatly broadens the design and materials available to unlock the door to many new opportunities. The result: smaller and more innovative devices with next generation features for sectors such as defense, automotive, consumer, aerospace, and health.

Dr. Ian Tevis is the CTO and Co-founder of SAFI-Tech. He is Materials Chemist with a PhD from Northwestern University. Ian became very familiar with the challenges heat can give in electronics processing during his PhD thesis work on self-assembling small molecule based solar cells. Before starting SAFI-Tech, Ian was a research scientist at NanoIntegris Technologies working on process and product development of carbon nanotube inks. Ian has been working on supercooled liquid metal particle technology for two and a half years, first as a postdoc at Iowa State University and now as the CTO at SAFI-Tech.

SAFI-Tech develops No-Heat SAC305™ liquid metal microcapsules, enabling low temperature processing of the industry's standard soldering alloy for electronics assembly. No-Heat SAC305 microcapsules can be precisely placed, selectively activated, and processed at ambient temperatures to form fully-metallic interconnects without the time, expense, and stress of high temperature reflow processes. SAFI-Tech's no-heat paradigm offers several advantages to design and assembly engineers: more choices for substrate and component materials; innovation and miniaturization for thinner, lighter, flexible products; faster volume throughput making conductive interconnects in seconds; better manufacturing yields by eliminating thermal defects; reduced energy costs and CO2 emissions with lower energy consumption.