High-performance light-emitting diodes encapsulated with silica-filled epoxy materials

Packaging materials have a great impact on the performance and reliability of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In this study, we have prepared high performance LED devices through encapsulating LEDs by epoxy materials incorporated with filler powders. A set of evaluation methods have also been established to characterize the reliability of LED devices. No delamination or internal cracking between packaging materials and lead frames has been found for the encapsulated high performance LED devices after the package saturation with moisture and subsequent exposure to high-temperature solder reflow and thermal cycling. Four kinds of inorganic silica fillers, namely, quartz, fused silica, cristobalite, and spherical silica, and one kind of organic filler, that is, spherical silicone powder, were incorporated into the epoxy packaging materials to compare their effects on performance of LED devices. The properties of epoxy packaging materials and LED devices were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analyses (TGA), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), thermomechanical analyzer (TMA), ultravioletvisible spectrophotometer (UV-vis), scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Except the spherical silicone powder filled epoxy materials, all the other filled systems showed lower equilibrium water sorption content and smaller water diffusion coefficient in both water sorption and moisture sorption tests. The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) values were also decreased with the addition of fillers, and the systems filled with quartz, fused, and filled with spherical silica gave the best performance, which exhibited the reduced CTE values both below and above Tg. The results of TGA essentially showed no difference between filled and unfilled systems. The glass transition temperature changed little for all the filled systems, except the one incorporated with spherical silicone. The modulus at room temperature increased with the addition of fillers. The light transmittance of filled epoxy materials varied with fillers after UV and thermal aging.