Mechanical Implications of High Current Densities in Flip Chip Solder Joints

Author(s):  
Hua Ye ◽  
Cemal Basaran ◽  
Douglas Hopkins

The electromigration damage in flip chip solder joints of eutectic SnPb was studied under current stressing at room temperature with the current density about 1.3×104A/cm2. The diameter of the solder joints was about 140μm. The mass accumulation near anode side and void nucleation near cathode were observed during current stressing. The nano-indentation test was first time done on solder joints for electromigration test. Surface marker movement was used to measure the atomic flux driven by electromigration and to calculate the product of effective charge number and diffusivity, DxZ*, of the solder at room temperature. The effective charge number can be extracted with the solder diffusivity at room temperature known.

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 1781-1786 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. Tsai ◽  
Yi-Shao Lai ◽  
Y. L. Lin ◽  
C. W. Chang ◽  
C. R. Kao

2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Shao Lai ◽  
Ying-Ta Chiu

This work presents electromigration reliability and patterns of Sn–3Ag–0.5Cu and Sn–3Ag–1.5Cu∕Sn–3Ag–0.5Cu composite flip-chip solder joints with Ti∕Ni(V)∕Cu under bump metallurgy (UBM), bonded on Au∕Ni∕Cu substrate pads. The solder joints were subjected to an average current density of 5kA∕cm2 under an ambient temperature of 150°C. Under the situation when electron charges flow from the UBM toward the substrate, Sn diffuses from the Cu–Ni–Sn intermetallic compound developed around the UBM toward the UBM and eventually causes the Ni(V) layer to deform. Electromigration reliability of Sn–3Ag–1.5Cu∕Sn–3Ag–0.5Cu composite flip-chip solder joints was found to be better than that of Sn–3Ag–0.5Cu solder joints. According to the morphological observations on cross-sectioned solder joints, a failure mechanism is proposed as follows. Since the deformation of the Ni(V) layer as a result of Sn diffusion toward the UBM is considered as the dominant failure, a greater Cu weight content in the solder joints would trap more Sn in the Sn–Cu interfacial reaction and would therefore retard the diffusion of Sn toward the UBM and hence enhance the electromigration reliability.


2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Shao Lai ◽  
Ying-Ta Chiu ◽  
Chiu-Wen Lee

Designed experiments were conducted in this paper to study the effect of Au/Ni/Cu or Cu substrate pad metallization on the electromigration reliability of 96.5Sn–3Ag–0.5Cu flip-chip solder joints with Ti/Ni(V)/Cu under bump metallurgy (UBM) under a current stressing condition with an average current density of around 5 kA/cm2 at an ambient temperature of 150°C. Cross-sectional observations on current-stressed solder joints indicate that although Cu metallization results in severe voiding compared with Au/Ni/Cu metallization on the substrate side of the solder joint, the dominant failure has been identified as UBM consumption, and test vehicles with Cu metallization exhibit better electromigration reliability than those with Au/Ni/Cu metallization. The stronger durability against current stressing for test vehicles with Cu metallization may attribute to the lower UBM consumption rate due to the continuous Cu diffusion toward UBM as a result of the concentration gradient. The consumption of UBM is faster for test vehicles with Au/Ni/Cu metallization because Cu diffusion from the substrate pad is retarded by the Ni barrier.


2004 ◽  
Vol 126 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. C. Chan ◽  
M. O. Alam ◽  
K. C. Hung ◽  
H. Lu ◽  
C. Bailey

The application of underfill materials to fill up the room between the chip and substrate is known to substantially improve the thermal fatigue life of flip chip solder joints. Nowadays, no-flow underfill materials are gaining much interest over traditional underfill as the application and curing of this type of underfill can be undertaken before and during the reflow process and thus aiding high volume throughput. However, there is always a potential chance of entrapping no-flow underfill in the solder joints. This work, attempts to find out the extent of underfill entrapment in the solder joints and its reliability effect on the flip chip packages. Some unavoidable underfill entrapments at the edges of the joint between solder bumps and substrate pads are found for certain solder joints whatever bonding conditions are applied. It is interesting to report for the first time that partial underfill entrapment at the edges of the solder joint seems to have no adverse effect on the fatigue lifetime of the samples since most of the first solder joint failure in the no-flow flip chip samples during thermal cycling are not at the site of solder interconnection with underfill entrapment. Our modeling results show good agreement with the experiment that shows underfill entrapment can actually increase the fatigue lifetime of the no-flow flip chip package.


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