A Study on the Optimization of the Conductive Ball Manufacturing Process, Used for Anisotropic Conductive Films

Currently, as the next-generation of display progresses—with high performance and high integration—the surface mounting technology of components is very important. In particular, in the case of flexible displays, such as rollable and bendable displays, ACF that connects wires to any curvature is essential. However, the conductive ball used inside the ACF has had problems with particle size and non-uniform metal coating. It was confirmed that the presence of solvent and oxygen, which are used in polymer synthesis, affects the sphere formation of polymer beads. By optimizing the factors affecting the polymer beads, a perfect spherical polymer bead was manufactured. In addition, the conductive ball manufacturing process was optimized by confirming the factors affecting the metal coating. The metal coating on the surface of the polymer bead was applied with a uniform thickness by considering the specific surface area and concentration of the conductive balls, and, through this optimized process, conductive balls for anisotropic conductive films with uniform size and metal thickness were obtained.