Abstract: Tetramethyl biphenyl epoxy resin (TMBP) was synthesized from 3,3',5,5'-tetramethyl-biphenyl-4,4'-diol and epichlorohydrin via a two-step method using 18-crown-6-ether as a Phase-transfer catalyst. The effect of temperature, reaction time, and phase-transfer catalyst on product yield was investigated. It was found that a maximum product yield of 83 % was obtained at 80 ℃ for 8 h. The chemical structure of TMBP was characterized with 1H-NMR、FTIR、XRD、POM and DSC. DSC showed that the melting temperature of TMBP was 107.8 ℃. POM results indicated that TMBP was a crystalline oligomer and its liquid crystalline behavior appears when cooled down from 120 to 76.2 ℃. TMBP has very low ηa (0.02 Paos at 150 ℃) and can be blended with ortho-cresol novolac epoxy resin(ECN) in order to decrease ηa of epoxy molding composite(EMC). It was concluded that TMBP can be used as a matrix resin for manufacturing epoxy molding compounds for integrated circuit encapsulation.

Key words: biphenyl epoxy resin, synthesis, structure and property, large-scale integrated circuits encapsulation