Electronic Packaging Materials for Deep Drilling Technologies

Junghyun Cho and Harry Schoeller^*
State University of New York (SUNY), Binghamton, New York 13902-6000

(In collaboration with Dr. Aaron Knobloch and his colleagues at GE Global Research)

^*Graduate student

Overview:

In this work, we identify and develop packaging materials for high-temperature electronic components that can be used for instrumentation in deep gas drilling systems.  There is an urgent demand for this technology to meet with the US natural gas consumptions in the near future.  Drilling for natural gas below 20,000 ft has, however, presented the electronics industry with a huge challenge. The materials must withstand high-temperature (>200�°C) high pressure (>15,000 psi), and corrosive environments, as well as the electronics must be designed to have high damping capacity. 

Most of existing organic materials used in electronic packaging are substantially degraded under such environments, thereby requiring more durable engineered materials and/or protective surfaces.  The proposed work develops enabling technology and apply the technology to offer tremendous opportunities in enhancing capabilities of the drilling systems. Given that, we explore new concepts in packaging by proposing innovative materials and processes for this technology. In the proposed work, we focus on materials design, engineering development, and test of the prototype of the packaging materials and structures. Specific activities to be performed to achieve this goal include:

• Identification of organic materials that can withstand the above harsh conditions
• Modeling of packaging materials and structures under various conditions (e.g., CTE mismatch, different thicknesses and geometries, polymer shrinkage at use temperatures, flexible vs. rigid, corrosive and vibratory environments)
• Static/dynamic mechanical measurements of organic materials at ambient conditions as well as under high temperatures for property validation and generation of materials properties for modeling work
• Microstructure-property relationships to better understand material performance
• Selection of enabling packaging materials and processes for the gas drilling techniques (based upon modeling and measurement results)
• Testing of prototype packaging systems

Support for this project is provided by General Electric Global Research under Department of Energy (DOE) prime cooperative agreement DE-FC26-06NT42950.