Relationship Between the Intermetallic Compounds Growth and the Microcracking Behavior of Lead-Free Solder Joints

2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tong An ◽  
Fei Qin

This paper investigates the formation and the growth of the intermetallic compound (IMC) layer at the interface between the Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu Pb-free solder and the Cu substrate during isothermal aging at 150 °C. We measure the thickness of the IMC layer and the roughness of the solder/IMC interface, and these two factors are assumed to control the tensile behavior of the solder joints. First, it utilizes the tensile tests of the aged solder joints for analyzing the effect of the IMC growth on the tensile behavior of the solder joints. Then, the microcracking behavior of the IMC layer is investigated by finite element method (FEM). In addition, qualitative numerical simulations are applied to study the effect of the IMC layer thickness and the solder/IMC interfacial roughness on the overall response and the failure mode of solder joints. The experimental results indicate that when the aging time increases, both the thickness and the roughness of the IMC layer have a strong influence on the strength and the failure mode of solder joints. The numerical simulation results suggest that the overall strength of solder joints is reduced when the IMC layer is thick and the solder/IMC interface is rough, and the dominant failure mode migrates to the microcracks within the IMC layer when the IMC layer is thick and the solder/IMC interface is flat.

2013 ◽  
Vol 634-638 ◽  
pp. 2800-2803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Meng Yin ◽  
Yan Fei Geng ◽  
Zhang Liang Xu ◽  
Song Wei

Adopting an accurate micro-tensile method based on dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) instrument, the tensile strength of three kinds of copper-wire/solder/copper-wire sandwich structured microscale lead-free solder joints that underwent current stressing with a direct current density of 1.0×104 A/cm2 and loading time of 48 hours were investigated, and compared with those solder joints isothermal aged at 100 0C for 48 hours and as-reflowed condition. These three kinds of microscale columnar solder joints have different volumes, i.e., a same diameter of 300 μm but different heights of 100 μm, 200 μm and 300 μm. Experimental results show that both current stressing and isothermal aging degrades the tensile strength of microscale solder joints, and the solder joint with smaller volume obtains higher tensile strength under same test condition. In addition, current stressing induces obvious electromigration (EM) issue under high current density of 1.0×104 A/cm2, resulting in the decreasing of tensile strength and different fracture position, mode and surface morphology of microscale solder joints. The degree of strength degradation increases with the increasing of joint height when keep joint diameter constant, this is mainly due to that electromigration leads to voids form and grow at the interface of cathode, and solder joints with larger volume may contains more soldering defects as well.


Author(s):  
Feng Gao ◽  
Jianping Jing ◽  
Frank Z. Liang ◽  
Richard L. Williams ◽  
Jianmin Qu

One of the major failure modes in lead-free solder joints is the brittle fracture at the solder/Cu pad interface under dynamic loading conditions. Such brittle fracture often leads to catastrophic premature failure of portable electronic devices. Therefore, it is desirable to design the package and the solder joints in such a way that brittle interfacial fracture can be avoided during drop test. To develop such design guidelines, we studied in this paper the dynamic failure of a single solder joint (SSJ). The SSJs with different geometry and substrate surface finish were prepared by laser-cutting from a BGA package assembled on a printed circuit board (PCB). The SSJs were tested under various shear loading rates, ranging from 5 mm/s to 500 mm/s. In conjunction with the experimental tests, finite element analyses (FEA) of these SSJ samples subjected to various loading rates were also conducted. Results from both experimental testing and numerical simulations show that the distribution of plastic strain near the solder/IMC interface is a key indictor of the failure mode. For a given sample geometry and loading rate, if the maximum solder plastic strain lies near the solder/IMC interface, the failure will be more likely to be ductile failure within the solder alloy. On the other hand, if the maximum plastic strain is mainly located at the edge of the interface between solder and the IMC layer with very little plasticity within the solder near the interface, brittle fracture of the IMC/Cu interface will be more likely to occur. Since numerically computing the plastic strain distribution in a solder joint is much easier than predicting joint failure, results of this study provide us with an effective means to predict the type of failure mode of a solder joint under dynamic loading.


Author(s):  
Abdullah Fahim ◽  
Sudan Ahmed ◽  
Jeffrey C. Suhling ◽  
Pradeep Lall

Exposure of lead free solder joints to high temperature isothermal aging conditions leads to microstructure evolution, which mainly includes coarsening of the intermetallic (IMC) phases. In our previous work, it was found that the coarsening of IMCs led to degradation of the overall mechanical properties of the SAC solder composite consisting of β-Sn matrix and IMC particles. However, it is not known whether the isothermal aging changes properties of the individual β-Sn and IMC phases, which could also be affecting to the overall degradation of properties. In this study, the aging induced variations of the mechanical properties of the β-Sn phase, and of Sn-Cu IMC particles in SAC solder joints have been explored using nanoindentation. SAC solder joints extracted from SuperBGA (SBGA) packages were aged for different time intervals (0, 1, 5, 10 days) at T = 125 °C. Nanoindentation test samples were prepared by cross sectioning the solder joints, and then molding them in epoxy and polishing them to prepare the joint surfaces for nanoindentation. Multiple β-Sn grains were identified in joints using optical polarized microscopy and IMCs were also observed. Individual β-Sn grains and IMC particles were then indented at room temperature to measure their mechanical properties (elastic modulus and hardness) and time dependent creep deformations. Properties measured at different aging time were then compared to explore aging induced degradations of the individual phases. The properties of the individual phases did not show significant degradation. Thus, IMC coarsening is the primary reason for the degradation of bulk solder joint properties, and changes of the properties of the individual phases making up the lead free solder material are negligible.


2021 ◽  
pp. 114201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Roumanille ◽  
Emna Ben Romdhane ◽  
Samuel Pin ◽  
Patrick Nguyen ◽  
Jean-Yves Delétage ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Hongtao Ma ◽  
Tae-Kyu Lee ◽  
Dong Hyun Kim ◽  
H G Park ◽  
Sang Ha Kim ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 2073-2081 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Lin ◽  
Yongping Lei ◽  
Hanguang Fu ◽  
Fu Guo

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