Electromigration Behavior of Sn58Bi and Sn58Bi Epoxy Solder Joint

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 538-543
Author(s):  
Choong-Jae Lee ◽  
Jae-Ha Kim ◽  
Haksan Jeong ◽  
Jae-Oh Bang ◽  
Seung-Boo Jung

As demanding for high performance and miniaturization of electronic devices, interconnection materials required higher reliability in mechanical, thermal and electrical. The importance of electromigration issue has increased because of these trends. We evaluated the electromigration behavior of Sn58Bi solder and Sn58Bi epoxy solder under high temperature and constant current flow. The electromigration test-kit was a designed and fabricated flip chip-type module and the diameter of the solder bump was 250 μm. A current was passed through the two solder joints, producing a current density of 3.0 × 103 A/cm2 at 100 °C. The microstructure of solder joint after electromigration test were investigated with field-emission scanning electron microscopy during electromigration, a Bi-rich layer was observed at the anode side of the solder joint and the formation of Kirkendall voids was observed at the cathode side of the solder joints. Different inorganic materials affect electromigration in the eutectic Sn58Bi solder joints.

2008 ◽  
Vol 44-46 ◽  
pp. 905-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Dong Lu ◽  
Xiao Qi He ◽  
Yun Fei En ◽  
Xin Wang

In advanced electronic products, electromigration-induced failure is one of the most serious problems in fine pitch flip chip solder joints because the design rule in devices requires high current density through small solder joints for high performance and miniaturization. The failure mode induced by electromigration in the flip chip solder joint is unique, owing to the loss of under bump metallurgy (UBM) and the interfacial void formation at the cathode contact interface. In this study, Electromigration of flip chip solder joints has been investigated under a constant density of 2.45×104 A/cm2 at 120 °C. The in-situ marker displacements during the electromigration test was measured and found to show a rough linear change as a function of time. Scanning electron microscopic images of the cross section of samples showed the existence of voids at the interface between Al interconnection and under bump metallurgy. The void movement was matched with the marker displacements during the electromigration test, and voids moved to the cathode interface between Al interconnection and under bump metallurgy in the downward electron flow (from chip to substrate) joint. The mechanism of electromigration-induced void migration and failure in the flip chip are discussed. During electromigration, a flux of atoms is driven from the cathode to the anode or a flux of vacancies in the opposite direction. It can lead to two possible mechanisms of void migration. First, if we regard the void as a rigid marker of diffusion, it will be displaced towards the cathode by the atomic flux in the electromigration, Second, if we consider surface diffusion on the void surface, electromigration will drive atoms on the top surface of the void to the bottom surface of the void, and consequently the void will move towards the cathode.


2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2591-2596 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Gu ◽  
D. Yang ◽  
Y.C. Chan ◽  
B.Y. Wu

In this study, the effects of electromigration (EM) on the growth of Cu–Sn intermetallic compounds (IMCs) in Cu/SnBi/Cu solder joints under 5 × 103 A/cm2 direct current stressing at 308, 328, and 348 K were investigated. For each Cu/SnBi/Cu solder joint under current stressing, the IMCs at the cathode side grew faster than that at the anode side. The growth of these IMCs at the anode side and the cathode side were enhanced by electric current. The growth of these IMCs at the cathode followed a parabolic growth law. The kinetics parameters of the growth of the IMCs were calculated from the thickness data of the IMCs at the cathode side at different ambient temperatures. The calculated intrinsic diffusivity (D0) of the Cu–Sn IMCs was 9.91 × 10−5 m2/s, and the activation energy of the growth of the total Cu–Sn IMC layer was 89.2 kJ/mol (0.92 eV).


2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Tian ◽  
Justin Chow ◽  
Xi Liu ◽  
Suresh K. Sitaraman

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the intermetallic compound (IMC) thickness, composition and morphology in 100-μm pitch and 200-μm pitch Sn–Ag–Cu (SAC305) flip-chip assemblies after bump reflow and assembly reflow. In particular, emphasis is placed on the effect of solder joint size on the interfacial IMCs between metal pads and solder matrix. Design/methodology/approach – This work uses 100-μm pitch and 200-μm pitch silicon flip chips with nickel (Ni) pads and stand-off height of approximately 45 and 90 μm, respectively, assembled on substrates with copper (Cu) pads. The IMCs evolution in solder joints was investigated during reflow by using 100- and 200-μm pitch flip-chip assemblies. Findings – After bump reflow, the joints size controls the IMC composition and dominant IMC type as well as IMC thickness and also influences the dominant IMC morphology. After assembly reflow, the cross-reaction of the pad metallurgies promotes the dominant IMC transformation and shape coarsened on the Ni pad interface for smaller joints and promotes a great number of new dominate IMC growth on the Ni pad interface in larger joints. On the Cu pad interface, many small voids formed in the IMC in larger joints, but were not observed in smaller joints, combined with the drawing of the IMC growth process. Originality/value – With continued advances in microelectronics, it is anticipated that next-generation microelectronic assemblies will require a reduction of the flip-chip solder bump pitch to 100 μm or less from the current industrial practice of 130 to150 μm. This work shows that as the packaging size reduced with the solder joint interconnection, the solder size becomes an important factor in the intermetallic composition as well as morphology and thickness after reflow.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-156
Author(s):  
Muhammad Naqib Nashrudin ◽  
Zhong Li Gan ◽  
Aizat Abas ◽  
M.H.H. Ishak ◽  
M. Yusuf Tura Ali

Purpose In line with the recent development of flip-chip reliability and underfill process, this paper aims to comprehensively investigate the effect of different hourglass shape solder joint on underfill encapsulation process by mean of experimental and numerical method. Design/methodology/approach Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) numerical was used for the three-dimensional simulation of underfill process. The effects of ball grid arrays (BGA) encapsulation process in terms of filling time of the fluid were investigated. Experiments were then carried out to validate the simulation results. Findings Hourglass shape solder joint has shown the shortest filling time for underfill process compared to truncated sphere. The underfill flow obtained from both simulation and experimental results are found to be in good agreement for the BGA model studied. The findings have also shown that the filling time of Hourglass 2 with parabolic shape gives faster filling time compared to the Hourglass 1 with hemisphere angle due to bigger cross-sectional area of void between the solder joints. Practical implications This paper provides reliable insights to the effect of hourglass shape BGA on the encapsulation process that will benefit future development of BGA packages. Originality/value LBM numerical method was implemented in this research to study the flow behaviour of an encapsulation process in term of filling time of hourglass shape BGA. To date, no research has been found to simulate the hourglass shape BGA using LBM.


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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 261-270
Author(s):  
Guang Chen ◽  
Jiqiang Li ◽  
Xinwen Kuang ◽  
Yaofeng Wu ◽  
Fengshun Wu

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of nickel-plated graphene (Ni-GNS) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of 96.5Sn3Ag0.5Cu (SAC305) lead-free solder joints before and after an electro-migration (EM) experiment. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, SAC305 solder alloy doped with 0.1 Wt.% Ni-GNS was prepared via the powder metallurgy method. A U-shaped sample structure was also designed and prepared to conduct an EM experiment. The EM experiment was carried out with a current density of 1.5 × 104 A/cm2. The microstructural and mechanical evolutions of both solder joints under EM stressing were comparatively studied using SEM and nanoindentation. Findings The experimental results showed that for the SAC305 solder, the interfacial intermetallic compounds (IMC) formulated a protrusion with an average height of 0.42 µm at the anode after 360 h of EM stressing; however, despite this, the surface of the composite solder joint was relatively smooth. During the stressing period, the interfacial IMC on the anode side of the plain SAC305 solder showed a continuous increasing trend, while the IMC at the cathode presented a decreasing trend for its thickness as the stressing time increased; after 360 h of stressing, some cracks and voids had formed on the cathode side. For the SAC305/ Ni-GNS composite solder, a continuous increase in the thickness of the interfacial IMC was found on both the anode and cathode side; the growth rate of the interfacial IMC at the anode was higher than that at the cathode. The nanoindentation results showed that the hardness of the SAC305 solder joint presented a gradient distribution after EM stressing, while the hardness data showed a relatively homogeneous distribution in the SAC305/ Ni-GNS solder joint. Originality/value The experimental results showed that the Ni-GNS reinforcement could effectively mitigate the EM behavior in solder joints under high current stressing. Specifically, the Ni particles that plated the graphene sheets can work as a fixing agent to suppress the diffusion and migration of Sn and Cu atoms by forming Sn-Cu-Ni IMC. In addition, the nanoidentation results also indicated that the addition of the Ni-GNS reinforcement was very helpful in maintaining the mechanical stability of the solder joint. These findings have provided a theoretical and experimental basis for the practical application of this novel composite solder with high current densities.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Chen ◽  
Nobumichi Tamura ◽  
King-Ning Tu

AbstractThe rotation of Sn grains in Pb-free flip chip solder joints hasn't been reported in literature so far although it has been observed in Sn strips. In this letter, we report the detailed study of the grain orientation evolution induced by electromigration by synchrotron based white beam X-ray microdiffraction. It is found that the grains in solder joint rotate more slowly than in Sn strip even under higher current density. On the other hand, based on our estimation, the reorientation of the grains in solder joints also results in the reduction of electric resistivity, similar to the case of Sn strip. We will also discuss the reason why the electric resistance decreases much more in strips than in the Sn-based solders, and the different driving force for the grain growth in solder joint and in thin film interconnect lines.


2011 ◽  
Vol 189-193 ◽  
pp. 1009-1013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Dong Lu ◽  
Yun Fei En ◽  
Ming Wan ◽  
Xiao Qi He ◽  
Xin Wang

A frequent cause of failure of portable and hand-held devices is an accidental drop to the ground. The effect of electromigration on the mechanical properties of solder joints was discussed in this paper. Without current stressing, the samples were broken in the bulk of solder or at the interface of Al interconnect and solder. If the Al-solder interfacial mechanical strength was improved by changed the interfacial structure or optimized the jointing process, the flip chip devices would show the lonely ductile fracture in the bulk of solder. After electromigration the samples were broken abruptly at the interface near the chip side while the bulk of the solder joints maintained the original shape. Due to the interfacial reaction and the polarity effect of electromigration on the interfaces, a ductile solder joint can become a brittle solder joint. The ductile-to-brittle transition is very sensitive to a high speed shear stress applied to the joints. Because solder alloys are ductile by nature, it is of interest to understand how electromigration can influence the mechanical properties of solder joints’ interfaces and change their ductile nature. Owing to the polarity effect of electromigration, vacancies will accumulate to form voids at the cathode interface of solder joints. Besides, much more intermetallic compound formation at the joint interfaces also caused the ductile-to-brittle transition. Thus the interfaces become more and more brittle with time due to IMC formation or vacancy accumulation from electromigration.


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.


2007 ◽  
Vol 353-358 ◽  
pp. 2932-2935
Author(s):  
Yong Cheng Lin ◽  
Xu Chen ◽  
Xing Shen Liu ◽  
Guo Quan Lu

The reliability of solder joints in flip chip assemblies with both compliant (flex) and rigid (PCB) substrates was studied by accelerated temperature cycling tests and finite element modeling (FEM). In-process electrical resistance measurements and nondestructive evaluations were conducted to monitor solder joint failure behavior, hence the fatigue failure life. Meanwhile, the predicted fatigue failure life of solder joints was obtained by Darveaux’s crack initiation and growth models. It can be concluded that the solder joints in flip chip on flex assembly (FCOF) have longer fatigue life than those in flip chip on rigid board assembly (FCOB); the maximum von Mises stress/strain and the maximum shear stress/strain of FCOB solder joints are much higher than those of FCOF solder joints; the thermal strain and stress in solder joints is reduced by flex buckling or bending and flex substrate could dissipate energy that otherwise would be absorbed by solder joint. Therefore, the substrate flexibility has a great effect on solder joint reliability and the reliability improvement was attributed to flex buckling or bending during temperature cycling.


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