Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
Underfill encapsulants, used in direct‐chip‐attachment (DCA) packaging of electronics, consist of an epoxy resin in which a high concentration of solid particles are suspended. As a fluid mixture key features of these encapsulants are their relatively large particle sizes and large particle‐to‐liquid density ratios (ρs/ρ0 ?2.4). Experiments have been conducted to characterize the flow behavior of model mixtures of negatively buoyant, spherical particles suspended in Newtonian liquids. Capillary flow in a parallel surface channel is used to simulate the underfill flow process. The effects of varying the channel spacing, particle size and liquid carrier are reported here. The flow behavior is contrasted with a linear fluid, effective viscosity model. Particle settling appears to be linked to the more complex behavior observed in both our model suspensions and measurements using an actual commercial encapsulant.