Ultrafine aluminum hydroxide powder has multiple functions such as flame retardancy, smoke suppression, and filling. It can produce synergistic flame retardant effects with various substances such as phosphorus and nitrogen. It has become an important environmentally friendly flame retardant in the chemical, cable, rubber and plastic, electronics and other industries.
According to statistics, as of 2019, my country's ultrafine aluminum hydroxide production was 634,700 tons, a year-on-year increase of 24.5%, accounting for about 25% of the global market share; it is expected that by 2025, my country's ultrafine aluminum hydroxide production will reach 2.0218 million tons, with a compound growth rate of 21.3% from 2019 to 2025, and is expected to account for about 43% of the global market share. The upstream of the ultrafine aluminum hydroxide industry chain is the bauxite mining and alumina industry, and the downstream is mainly used in wire and cable, insulation materials, ceramics, semiconductors and other industries.
The monthly demand for electronic-grade ATH is less than 2,000 tons, which is a particularly niche market segment. Semiconductors, as the carrier of printed circuit boards, mainly play the role of interconnection, conduction, insulation and support for printed circuit boards, and have a great impact on the transmission speed, energy loss and characteristics of signals in the circuit. Therefore, in order to meet the demands of semiconductors in electronics and electrical engineering, I will call the special ultrafine aluminum hydroxide specially customized for semiconductors electronic-grade ATH.
1. High purity of ingredients
Impurities such as iron oxide and sodium oxide mixed in the ultrafine aluminum hydroxide during the crystallization process will reduce the insulation performance of the semiconductor. In addition, sodium oxide also affects the initial thermal decomposition temperature of aluminum hydroxide. The lower the sodium oxide content, the better the thermal stability of the product. Therefore, the high purification of the chemical composition of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide, minimizing the impurities in ultrafine aluminum hydroxide, and continuously improving the purity of the product are the primary development directions of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide for semiconductors.
2. Granularity Centralization
Ultrafine aluminum hydroxide with different particle sizes has different performance parameter indicators, which directly affect the production, processing and use performance of semiconductors. The smaller the standard deviation of the normal distribution of the particle size of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide products, the more consistent the performance, and the more uniform and stable the processing and use performance of semiconductors. Therefore, in the process of producing ultrafine aluminum hydroxide, an important consideration is the concentration of particle size distribution. How to strictly control the particle size distribution of powders at the micron or even nanometer level, and maintain continuous stability between different batches , is an important problem faced by ultrafine aluminum hydroxide manufacturers. Therefore, the centralization of particle size distribution is the main development direction of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide for semiconductors.
3. Ultra-fine particle size
The ultrafineness of aluminum hydroxide increases the surface area of aluminum hydroxide, reduces the vapor pressure of the particle surface, significantly enhances the flame retardant effect, and improves the mechanical properties and heat resistance of the material products. However, ultrafine particle size will lead to powder agglomeration, seriously affecting the uniformity of the powder in the epoxy resin, making it difficult to use ultrafine aluminum hydroxide in semiconductor production (A agglomeration leads to clogging of the filtration system, B increased oil absorption value changes the viscosity of the epoxy resin system, affecting the dipping and coating effect). Therefore, achieving ultrafine aluminum hydroxide powder and balancing dispersibility at the same time is the third major technical difficulty of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide for semiconductors.
4. Improve heat resistance
Generally, the decomposition temperature of aluminum hydroxide is low, and it starts to remove crystal water at 200℃-220℃. When the temperature is too high during the semiconductor production process or circuit board processing, aluminum hydroxide will dehydrate and form bubbles, which will cause many performance risks of the circuit board. The promotion of lead-free circuit board process has aggravated the test of heat resistance, which has become a bottleneck for the promotion and application of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide in the semiconductor industry. Therefore, improving the heat resistance of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide and adapting to the rising heat resistance requirements of downstream semiconductor customers are the main challenges faced today.
5. Surface modification
Surface modification refers to the use of certain methods to treat, modify and process the surface of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide, and purposefully change its physical and chemical properties to meet the needs of semiconductor production and processing. Through surface modification, the electrical properties, magnetism, surface tension and steric hindrance of the particle surface can be changed, its dispersibility in the resin can be improved, its compatibility with polymer materials can be enhanced, and the embrittlement or performance degradation of semiconductor materials caused by the addition of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide can be reduced or eliminated, thereby expanding the downstream application range of ultrafine aluminum hydroxide.
6. Flame retardant synergy
Different types of flame retardants have different advantages and characteristics. In addition, aluminum hydroxide itself has some performance shortcomings (such as heat resistance). In order to better meet the needs of semiconductors and downstream material products, the combination of multiple flame retardants to achieve complementary advantages has become one of the important research topics. At present, the combination and synergy technology with phosphorus nitrogen series, magnesium hydroxide and other flame retardants is an important research and development direction for ultrafine aluminum hydroxide flame retardants.
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