As the processing speed of the electronic components increased with technology advances, the overall performance of the system is limited by the propagation delay in the interconnections, while the propagation speed of signal in interconnections is depended on the dielectric materials. The current dielectric materials such as dense polyimide have dielectric constant of 3 .2. Future generation of electronic devices require the material to have dielectric constant below 3. To increase signal propagation speed and reduce propagation delay, low dielectric constant material has to be developed. The research on porous epoxy filled with cordierite consists of four parts. The first part of the study was to investigate the effect of mixing sequences: epoxy, latex then hardener (ELH) and epoxy, hardener then latex (EHL) through the extraction of NR latex using water and toluene as extraction medium were compared between ultrasonic and without ultrasonic technique. Porous epoxy was obtained after the extraction ofNR latex in the mixture of immiscible system of epoxy/latex blending. The mixing of epoxy/latex was prepared by mechanical mixing stirrer at room temperature and rotor speed of 400rpm. The latex content was varied from 0.5 to 2.0 phr. As expected, the density result showed lower values in the porous epoxy extracted by toluene with ultrasonic technique. More porous structure in epoxy leaded to lower value in dielectric constant which prefer for dielectric layer in substrate material. However, it also caused a decrease in flexural strength and modulus. The second part of research was carried out the modification of the viscosity of latex using ammonia and acetic acid. It was found that the viscosity of latex plays the important parameter to produce more porous stmcture. Optimum pH value was selected at 11 using epoxy, latex then hardener (ELH) mixing sequences due to the lowest dielectric constant value. Cordierite was synthesized in the third part of the study. It was used as the filler in porous epoxy. Cordierite was chosen here due to its high strength and modulus properties. The cordierite content was varied from 2.5 to 10 volume %. The cordierite filled porous epoxy showed better flexural strength and dielectric constant properties than without filler loading. On the other hand, thermal stability was increased with increasing in cordierite content. In the fourth part of study, the optimum content of the cordierite was treated with 3-Aminoprophyloxysilane (3-APE) in order to form surface functional group on cordierite surface in epoxy matrix. The functional group grafted on the surface of cordierite was detected by Fourier Transform Infrared Red (FTIR). The morphology of fracture surface after flexural test was observed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results showed the interaction between cordierite and epoxy matrix was improved after surface treatment of cordierite. It was found that the flexural strength and modulus of porous epoxy increased after the surface treatment. On the other hand, the thermal stability was also improved with the surface treated cordierite in which the decomposition temperature of porous epoxy with treated cordierite was higher than the
porous epoxy with untreated cordierite. Furthermore it was found that the dielectric constant value was reduced after surface treatment. A dielectric constant of 2.8 was achieved with increasing the mechanical properties. Usage of this new low dielectric material as dielectric layer in substrate materials can help to improve circuit speed compared to the dense polyimide.
