Cold isostatic pressing of screen-printed dielectric for power electronics passive component integration

This paper focuses on the study of high-capacitance embedded capacitors for power electronics applications, manufactured by the screen-printing technique. Thick film ferroelectric ceramic was printed on Ag/Al2O3 substrates and dried at 120 °C, then a pre-treatment was applied by cold isostatic pressing (CIP) before sintering. A comparison of the physico-chemical and electrical properties of the non-CIP and CIP samples is made. The results show that the thick film samples pre-treated by CIP have higher permittivity and higher dielectric strength compared to the untreated ones. The capacitor samples with CIP pre-treatment also exhibit higher capacitances, lower parasitic equivalent series inductance and series resistance; all key intrinsic dielectric properties relevant for applications. We propose the use of this process for obtaining the embedded capacitors that allow for high-capacitance values for decoupling and filtering in power electronics applications.