DSC and DEA studies of underfill curing kinetics

Isothermal and non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dielectric analysis (DEA) techniques were used to study the curing kinetics of an epoxy-based underfill material used in electronic packaging. Based on the phenomenological kinetic analyses, the activation energy for the curing reaction determined from the non-isothermal DSC studies is similar to that obtained from the isothermal DSC experiments. DEA and rheological analyses demonstrated that the DEA loss factor peak can be used to monitor the gelation. In addition, our results reveal that the activation energy determined by DEA experiments (both isothermal and non-isothermal) correlates well with the DSC results. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.