A paste including
metal or
metal alloy particles (which are preferably silver or silver
alloy), a dispersant material, and a binder is used to form an electrical, mechanical or thermal interconnect between a device and a substrate. By using nanoscale particles (i.e., those which are less than 500 nm in size and most preferably less than 100 nm in size), the
metal or
metal alloy particles can be sintered at a low temperature to form a metal or
metal alloy layer which is desired to allow good electrical, thermal and mechanical bonding, yet the metal or
metal alloy layer can enable usage at a high temperature such as would be desired for SiC, GaN, or
diamond (e.g., wide bandgap devices). Furthermore, significant application of pressure to form the densified
layers is not required, as would be the case with
micrometer sized particles. In addition, the binder can be varied so as to insulate the metal particles until a desired
sintering temperature is reached; thereby permitting fast and complete
sintering to be achieved.