We investigated the structure of an ultra-thin insulating board with low thermal conductivity along z-axis, which was based on the idea of void layers created during the glass infiltration process for the zero-shrinkage low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology. An alumina and four glass powders were chosen and prepared as green sheets by the tape casting method. After comparison of the four glass powders, bismuth glass was selected for the experiment. Since there is no notable reactivity between alumina and bismuth glass, alumina was selected as the supporting additive in glass layers. With 2.5 vol% of alumina powder, glass green sheets were prepared and stacked alternately with alumina green sheet to form the ‘alumina/glass (including alumina additive)/alumina’ structure. The stacked green sheets were sintered into an insulating substrate. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the additive alumina formed supporting bridges in void layers. The depth and number of the stacking layers were varied to examine the insulating property. The lowest thermal conductivity obtained was 0.23 W/mK with a 500-㎛-thick substrate.

With high integration of electronic components, power inductors are also miniaturized. Recently, thick film processes for small size power inductors were developed and commercialized. However, the thick film process to prepare soft magnetic green sheets was not reported enough. In this study, we used Fe-Si magnetic and CIP (carbonyl iron powders) as starting materials to lead to a bimodal particle size distribution in the sheet. We proposed a newly developed ‘Modified slurry preparation process’ to get well dispersed condition even at high solid contents. Using the new process, it was possible to prepare a well dispersed slurry over 70 vol% of solid. BYK-103 was better than BYK-111 as dispersant in this slurry and the optimum amount was 0.6 wt%. The optimized slurry was formed into a sheet by tape casting process and then the sheet was laminated. We conformed that small size powder, large size powder, and epoxy resin were well dispersed in the green sheet.