Functional hermetic encapsulation of integrated circuits

This study demonstrates a new process technology for synthesizing thin films which should be applicable to a variety of implantable devices of different substrate composition and geometries. This new technology, termed the plasma polymerization/vapor deposition (PP/VD) technology, combines the features of surface cleaning, surface treatment, and hermetic encapsulation into a series of in situ vacuum processes. This PP/VD process has produced functional hermetic encapsulating polymer films with a total thickness of 5 microns, independent of the composition, dimensions or geometry of the substrates. CMOS integrated circuits coated by this process and immersed in Ringer's solution and tested for a year, demonstrated unchanging device performance parameters characteristic of hermetically encapsulated integrated circuits.