Aluminum etching

[generic_username]

Hello everyone,

Maybe one has some insight on aluminum etching, using etched AL for antenna design for smartcards seems to be pretty common.
The basis material is often PET and then the traces are etched AL.

And I was wondering how do they connect the microchips with the AL?
AL has the nasty habit of building an oxide coating pretty fast.
I found a hobbiest way to solder on AL chassis, which is coating the area with engineoil and then solder it normally.

So I found a datasheet from a japanese company which does antenna etching for smartcards and the following methods are listed as attached.

But I have no Idea what those bonding methods are as there's no explanation and a google searxh did not bring me any luck yet.

cheers.

[helius]

The pads on the IC itself are most commonly aluminum (the only alternative to aluminum interconnect is copper, and it is less common especially for lower cost products). The aluminum pads on the IC are connected to aluminum (or copper, etc) circuit traces using gold wire bonding.

[generic_username]

Thank you for your reply.
After I googled the shortcuts with keyword "chipbonding" I finally found what they mean
 

ACF= anisotropic conductive film
NCF=? non-conductive film?
ACP=anisotropic conductive adhesive paste
NCP=non-conductive adhesive paste

did I get that right?

cheers.

[helius]

ACF = anisotropic conductive film
NCF = non-conductive film
ACP = anisotropic conductive paste
NCP = non-conductive paste

The idea is that by sticking a layer of adhesive (film or paste) between the chip and the substrate, you can connect the chip's pads to wires in the substrate. But if the adhesive were conductive, it would conduct between the pads, which would be a short circuit. Anisotropic conductive materials only conduct along one axis (they are also called Z-axis conductive adhesives): they are nanomaterials that contain millions of short nickel fibers, aligned in a strong magnetic field. The fibers conduct across the thin part of the adhesive but not along the wide part. The non-conductive adhesives are applied using pressure so that the pads on the chip make point contact with the wires in the substrate.

[generic_username]

Thank you that was very informative.

[coppercone2]

If you wanna solder it go to the welding store and buy aluminum solder and the special acid flux they have for it and follow the directions

[generic_username]

thank you but I was only generally interested how'd you contact aluminum etched products