Capacitors were invented in 1745 and have served as portable electrical
charge storage devices ever since. During the 19th century a general
understanding of electro-magnetism was gradually developed. Electronic
devices and circuits were pioneered in the early 20th century and, by
its end, revolutionized the generation, processing, storage and
transmission of information. No evolutionary limits have yet been
approached.
Strictly speaking, all circuits have capacitors; often not wanted,
considered parasitic capacitors, such as capacitance of signal
interconnections. A great deal of effort in academia and industry
attempts to reduce the value of the parasitic capacitors by means of
novel materials and structures with the lowest dielectric constant.
Thin-Film Capacitors for Packaged Electronics deals with the
capacitors of a wanted kind, still needed and capable of keeping pace
with the demands posed by ever greater levels of integration. It spans a
wide range of topics, from materials properties to limits of what's the
best one can achieve in capacitor properties to process modeling to
application examples. Some of the topics covered are the following:
-Novel insights into fundamental relationships between dielectric
constant and the breakdown field of materials and related capacitance
density and breakdown voltage of capacitor structures,
-Electrical characterization techniques for a wide range of frequencies
(1 kHz to 20 GHz),
-Process modeling to determine stable operating points,
-Prevention of metal (Cu) diffusion into the dielectric,
-Measurements and modeling of the dielectric micro-roughness.
