US 6,271,163 B1Granted

Aluminum nitride sintered body and method of preparing the same

AssigneeSumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.

InventorsYasuhisa Yushio, Hirohiko Nakata, Kazutaka Sasaki, Masuhiro Natsuhara, Motoyuki Tanaka, Yasuhiro Murase

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Abstract

An aluminum nitride sintered body has excellent thermal shock resistance and strength, and is applicable to a radiating substrate for a power module or a jig for semiconductor equipment employed under a strict heat cycle. The aluminum nitride sintered body contains 0.01 to 5 percent by weight of an alkaline earth metal element compound in terms of an oxide and 0.01 to 10 percent by weight of a rare earth element compound in terms of an oxide, respectively as sintering aids, and a residual amount of carbon in a range from 0.005 to 0.1 percent by weight, thereby suppressing grain growth and improving thermal shock resistance and strength of the sintered body.

Claims18

Dependent claims

An article comprising a sintered body that is formed by sintering a starting material, and that contains:

at least 0.01 percent by weight and not more than 5 percent by weight of an alkaline earth metal element in terms of an oxide thereof,
at least 0.01 percent by weight and not more than 10 percent by weight of a rare earth element in terms of an oxide thereof,
at least 0.005 percent by weight and less than 0.05 percent by weight of residual carbon, resulting from more than 0.008 percent by weight and less than 0.05 percent by weight of carbon being contained in said starting material, and
a remainder,
wherein a main component of said remainder is aluminum nitride, and
wherein said sintered body has a structure formed of grains having a mean grain size of not more than 3μm.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.