Effect of Humidity and Electronic Packaging Exhalates on the Performance of some Active and Passive Components used in an Electronic Equipment

Abstract

The performance of some commercial P-N Junction diodes, some ceramic capacitors and some resistors has been tested under moisture (RH 60% to 95%) and various exhalate vapours (HCl, HNO3., HCOOH, CH3 COOH, NH3 and SO2) which are generally released by the electronic packaging materials. The ideality factor of the diode changes after exposure, the change being more at higher exposure times. The organic acid vapours degrade the devices the most. Silicon diodes, in general, are found to be less sensitive to the humidity and exhalate vapours as compared to Germanium and Indium Antimonide diodes. The presence of oxide layer on the surface of silicon diodes may be responsible for the smaller degradation effect.