Can zinc aluminate-titania composite be an alternative for alumina as microelectronic substrate?

Alumina, thanks to its superior thermal and dielectric properties, has been the leading substrate over several decades, for power and microelectronics circuits. However, alumina lacks thermal stability since its temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τf) is far from zero (-60 ppmK-1). The present paper explores the potentiality of a ceramic composite 0.83ZnAl2O4-0.17TiO2 (in moles, abbreviated as ZAT) substrates for electronic applications over other commercially-used alumina-based substrates and synthesized using a non-aqueous tape casting method. The present substrate has τf of + 3.9 ppmK-1 and is a valuable addition to the group of thermo-stable substrates. The ZAT substrate shows a high thermal conductivity of 31.3 Wm-1K-1 (thermal conductivity of alumina is about 24.5 Wm-1K-1), along with promising mechanical, electrical and microwave dielectric properties comparable to that of alumina-based commercial substrates. Furthermore, the newly-developed substrate material shows exceptionally good thermal stability of dielectric constant, which cannot be met with any of the alumina-based HTCC substrates.