This invention aims at providing a carbon-coated metal powder having few impurities, a narrower particle size distribution, and sintering properties particularly suitable as a conductive powder of a conductive paste for forming internal conductors in a ceramic multilayer electronic component obtained by co-firing multilayered ceramic sheets and internal conductor layers; a conductive paste containing the carbon-coated metal powder; a multilayer electronic component using the conductive paste; and a method for manufacturing the carbon-coated metal powder. The carbon-coated metal powder has specific properties in TMA or ESCA measurements. The carbon-coated metal powder can be obtained by melting and vaporizing a metallic raw material in a reaction vessel, conveying the generated metal vapor into a cooling tube and rapidly cooling the metal vapor by endothermically decomposing a carbon source supplied into the cooling tube, and forming a carbon coating film on metal nuclei surfaces in parallel with generation of the metal nuclei.

A flux according to the present invention includes a phosphine oxide. It is thereby possible to provide a flux capable of improving solder wettability, a resin flux cored solder including the flux, and a solder paste including the flux.

A flux containing: a rosin; a solvent (S); a thixotropic agent; and an activator is disclosed. The rosin contains a rosin amine. The solvent (S) contains a first solvent (S1) having a boiling point of 250° C. or less, and the amount of the first solvent (S1) relative to the total amount of the solvent (S) is 50% by mass or more and 100% by mass or less.

An iodine-containing cyclic compound including no carboxy group and including one ring skeleton or a plurality of ring skeletons forming a fused ring in one molecule, is provided. The ring of the ring skeleton includes only a carbon atom, or a carbon atom, and a nitrogen atom and/or an oxygen atom, and an iodine atom is bonded to at least one of the atoms constituting the ring of the ring skeleton.

Provided is a flux that allows soldering to be performed without requiring a step of removing a Cu-OSP film even with a Cu-OSP processed substrate. This flux containing rosin, an organic acid, a benzimidazole-based compound, and a solvent is characterized in that 30% by mass or more and 70% by mass or less of the rosin, 1% by mass or more and 10% by mass or less of the organic acid, 0.2% by mass or more and 10% by mass or less of the benzimidazole-based compound, and 20% by mass or more and 60% by mass or less of the solvent, wherein the benzimidazole-based compound is composed of at least one of 2-alkylbenzimidazole and a salt of 2-alkylbenzimidazole hydrohalide.

A solder paste is adopted, the solder paste containing: a solder alloy powder in which a content of solder alloy particles having a particle size of 8 μm or less is 99% by mass or more with respect to a total mass of the solder alloy powder; and a flux. This flux contains an acid-modified rosin, a solvent, an activator, and a thixotropic agent, in which the activator contains a halogenated aliphatic compound, and a dicarboxylic acid represented by General Formula (2).

##STR00001##

[in the formula, R represents an alkylene group having 1 to 7 carbon atoms, or a single bond, provided that a methylene group constituting the alkylene group may be substituted with an oxygen atom]

A flux according to the present invention is a flux for soldering, the flux including: an unsaturated aliphatic alcohol having one unsaturated bond, a thixotropic agent, and a solvent, in which the unsaturated aliphatic alcohol includes oleyl alcohol, and a content of the oleyl alcohol is 2.0 mass % or more and 12.0 mass % or less based on the entire flux.

A solder paste includes a solder powder and a flux. The flux includes a rosin, an activator, a solvent, and a thixotropic agent containing a polyethylene glycol. A content of the polyethylene glycol is 10 mass % to 20 mass % with respect to a total mass of the flux, a content of the thixotropic agent excluding the polyethylene glycol is 5 mass % or less with respect to the total mass of the flux, and a content of the rosin is more than 15 mass % and 50 mass % or less with respect to the total mass of the flux.

A flux for a solder paste includes rosin, an activator and a solvent. The solvent includes a monoalkylene glycol-based solvent and a solid solvent that is solid at 20° C. The total content of the monoalkylene glycol-based solvent and the solid solvent ranges from 40% by mass to 60% by mass with the total amount of the flux as 100%. The content of the solid solvent ranges from 5% by mass to 25% by mass with the total amount of the flux as 100%.

An objective of the present invention is to provide a flux that suppresses occurrence of flux drying up during soldering and occurrence of precipitation during storing.

The flux comprising, based on the whole flux, 3.5 to 11% by mass of a rosin ester, more than 0% by mass and 18% by mass or less of a rosin resin other than a rosin ester, and 70% by mass or more and less than 96.5% by mass of a solvent.