Active solid-state devices (e.g. – transistors – solid-state diode – Incoherent light emitter structure – With housing or contact structure
Reexamination Certificate
2002-11-27
2004-11-02
Jackson, Jerome (Department: 2815)
Active solid-state devices (e.g., transistors, solid-state diode
Incoherent light emitter structure
With housing or contact structure
C257S098000, C257S100000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06812503
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a light-emitting device and, more particularly, to a light-emitting device with improved reliability so as to achieve a prolonged lifetime, better stability and excellent illumination quality.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The light-emitting diode (to be abbreviated as LED hereinafter) has received considerable attention for its advantages such as long lifetime, small size, low heat generation, low power consumption, high response speed, monochromic lighting ability, etc. and has been widely used in applications such as computer peripherals, clock displays, display panels, traffic signs, and many other 3C (computer, communication and consumer) products since the 1960s. Therefore, the LED has become one of the most important light sources.
To implement a white light source by emitting monochromatic lights of various wavelengths (more particularly, red, green and blue lights), there have been disclosed lots of new techniques such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,998,925 entitled “Light emitting device having a nitride compound semiconductor and a phosphor containing a garnet fluorescent material” filed by Yoshinori Shimizu, et al (Nichia, J P) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,962,971 entitled “LED structure with ultraviolet light emission chip and multilayered resins to generate various colored lights” filed by Hsing Chen. (TW). In these aforementioned patent applications, a light-emitting component is sited in a cap formed of epoxy resin, in which there are also provided with a filler formed of a fluorescent material, resin, epoxy resin and polymer surrounding the light-emitting component so as to absorb light of a first color. The wavelength of light of the first-color is then converted into the wavelength of light of a second color or light of a third color so as to achieve color conversion of light.
FIG. 1
is a schematic cross-sectional view showing a structure of a light-emitting device according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,998,925, in which a light-emitting component
15
(for example, an LED die) is sited inside a housing
13
filled with a filler such as epoxy resin
19
containing a fluorescent material surrounding the light-emitting component
15
. The electrodes for the n-type side and the p-type side of the light-emitting component
15
are, respectively, connected via conducting wires
157
to metal pads
17
under the housing
13
. The monochromatic light from the light-emitting component
15
is then converted by the epoxy resin
19
containing a fluorescent material into light of a wavelength different from the original. Certainly, when the light-emitting device is designed to emit light identical to that emitted by the light-emitting component
15
, epoxy resin
19
without any fluorescent material is also provided as so to hold and protect the light-emitting device.
Even though the aforementioned prior art achieves light conversion so as to possibly realize a white light source, there are still some drawbacks as described below:
1. Heat generated during operation of the light-emitting device accumulates to adversely affect the light-emitting component due to lack of heat dissipation channel, resulting in poor reliability and shortened lifetime. For a micro-sized packaged device (such as surface mounted device, SMD), since the size of the device is very small after being packaged, the thermal effect thereof is much more severe than that of conventional packaged devices. Furthermore, because small-size high-power light-emitting devices are highly expected, the heat generated during operation of such light-emitting devices will be considered as a great challenge to the state-of-the-art packaging technology.
2. The thermal expansion coefficients of epoxy resin and generally used substrates differ significantly from that of a light-emitting component. When the temperature during operation (or the temperature difference between the light-emitting component and the environment outside of device) increases to a certain value, physical properties of the light-emitting component may change or the light-emitting component itself may fail due to interface stress, resulting in a shortened lifetime.
3. To reduce the fabrication cost, the conventional light-emitting device comprises epoxy resin directly surrounding the light-emitting component for the sake of positioning as well as protection. The filler such as epoxy resin may, to some extent, absorb light passing through the filler, which adversely affects the illumination quality. Meanwhile, the organic or inorganic filler suffers from poor reliability under illumination at short wavelengths (<450 nm), adversely affecting the illumination quality, illumination intensity, stability and lifetime of the light-emitting device.
4. Since the light-emitting component (for example, an LED die) is surrounded by epoxy resin, a stress on the light-emitting component may occur when the epoxy resin is solidified from its liquid state. Therefore, the illumination quality, device reliability and lifetime may be affected.
5. During the curing process for solidifying the epoxy resin, the stress on the light-emitting component may result in an open circuit by breaking up the conducting wires bonded between the light-emitting component and the pads. Therefore, the fabrication yield as well as the device reliability may be significantly reduced.
6. Since the epoxy resin is formed by injection into the housing, the precision is questionable. Furthermore, stress of considerable strength resulting from molding and curing process may reduce the device quality. If the customer requires only small amount of devices with a great diversity of patterns, conventional fabrication processing (which requires to use different molds) may increase the fabrication cost and take a much longer time.
7. The light-emitting component as well as the fluorescent material is likely to degrade due to short wavelength light such as UV light, leading to poor reliability and a shortened lifetime of the light-emitting device.
In other words, the heat generated on a micro-sized packaged device is over ten times the heat on a conventional packaged device since the state-of-the-art micro-sized packaging substrate has only a tenth time the area of a conventional packaging substrate. Meanwhile, as the device gets smaller (for example, the SMD is heading for 0402 from the 0603 spec.), the heat issue will become more and more critical.
The high-power light-emitting device is increasingly required in the market. However, the micro-sized packaged device suffers from poor heat dissipation resulting in poor reliability and a shortened lifetime under high-power applications. Considering a micro-sized high-power device, on which the heat generated per unit area is at least ten times the heat generated on a conventional packaged device and the current during operation is at least ten times the operation current in a conventional device, the heat dissipation ability is required to be at least one hundred times over a conventional one. Moreover, if the current during operation is further increased, the heat generated per unit area on the micro-sized packaged device will be very close to that of a sold-state laser, which is never considered in micro-sized packaging. In addition, stress due to thermal expansion difference between materials as well as packaging reliability may also additional problems.
Therefore, there is need in providing a light-emitting device with improved reliability, so as to achieve a prolonged lifetime, better stability and excellent illumination quality even though the device is used in an unfriendly environment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is the primary object of the present invention to provide a light-emitting device with improved reliability, in which, instead of epoxy resin, material with a thermal expansion coefficient equivalent to that of the light-emitting component is used as the cap and the substrate so as to be suitable for use in an unfriendly environment.
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Lin Ming-Der
Wang Kwang-Ru
Highlink Technology Corporation
Jackson Jerome
Rosenberg , Klein & Lee
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