Determination of residual strains of the EMC in PBGA during manufacturing and IR solder reflow processes

Abstract

Even though recently published results indicated that residual strains of the epoxy molding compound (EMC) play a key role on the warpage values and shapes of the plastic ball grid array (PBGA) packages, it is still unknown about how these residual strains build up and change during the manufacturing and infrared (IR) solder reflow processes. The purpose of this study is to quantify the residual strains of the EMC in the PBGA packages during the aforementioned processes using a combination of experimental, theoretical and numerical approaches. In the experiments, a full-field shadow moiré is used for measuring their real-time out-of-plane deformation (warpage), during heating and cooling conditions, of two types of the PBGA specimens (without a silicon chip inside) with the same EMC but different substrates (with glass transition temperature T g = 172 and 202 °C). Furthermore, Timoshenko’s bi-material theory associated with the measured and temperature-dependent elastic moduli and coefficients of thermal expansion for the EMC and substrates is applied for extracting residual strains of the EMC from shadow moiré results. In the analysis, the finite element method cooperating with those determined residual strains is employed to numerically simulate the thermal-induced deformations of the PBGA specimens, in order to verify mechanics. The full-field warpage of the specimens from shadow moiré is documented before and after post-mold curing, solder reflow and during the temperature cycling (from room temperature to 260 °C). The residual strains of the EMC for the specimens with low- T g and high- T g substrates after post-mold curing are found to be 0.059% and 0.134%, respectively, which double those before post-mold curing, and further down to 0.035% and 0.08% after the first thermal cycling. After the first cycling, the residual strains remain almost constant during heating and cooling processes. This phenomenon is also observed at lead-free solder reflow processes. Therefore, the residual strains of the EMC induced by the chemical shrinkage of the EMC curing and possibly mold flow pressure are different between the specimens with low- T g and high- T g substrates, and these residual strains could change during post-mold curing and the first solder reflow processes.