*Huai-Hsuan Huang, Ying-Hung Chen, Ping-Yen Hsieh, Ju-Liang He, Feng Chia University, Taichung City, Taiwan
5G communication puts forward higher requirements for computing and transmission speed, which are contributed by the increased number and integration of electronic components. This also highlight the importance of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding that traditional sub-cavity (compartment) is unsatisfactory. Alternatively, conformal-type of EMI shielding technique, composed of conductive paste and conductive adhesive materials give less uniformity and flexibility. There is a recent intension of utilizing PVDs such as evaporation deposition to metallize polymer foil for preparing EMI shielding cover layer with the deposited metal layer thickness in the range of sub-micrometer. Cautions shall be made to keep the deposition temperature low enough (less than 150 oC) during metallizing for dimensional retention, while achieving strong film adhesion and conformability of the metallized polymer foil. In this study, high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) was used to deposit copper on a polymer foil (specifically for EMI shielding purpose). With high-density plasma and high ion energy of the HIPIMS, strong film adhesion and dense copper film can be deposited. Sheet resistance of the coated polymer foil can achieve 0.184 Ohm/□ when at film thickness of 0.2 μm, indicating the availability of the HIPIMS employment. The film adhesion, retaining flexibility and EMI shielding effectiveness of the coated polymer foil are tested and fulfilled. This study suggests the feasibility of HIPIMS-Cu for conformal-type EMI shielding purpose.