Electrochemical migration and corrosion behaviours of SAC305 reinforced by NiO, Fe2O3, TiO2 nanoparticles in NaCl solution

Abstract

Pb-free solders incorporated with nano-sized particles have been identified, as potential Pb-free nanocomposite solders that could provide higher microstructure stability and better mechanical properties than the conventional solders. Nowadays, the miniaturizations of electronic devices increase in their usage have increased the risk of failure due to ion migration and corrosion phenomena. This research investigates the effects the electrochemical migration (ECM) and corrosion behaviour of Sn- 3.0Ag-0.5Cu (SAC305) reinforced by NiO, Fe2O3 and TiO2 nanoparticles in 0.1M NaCl solution. The SAC305 solder alloys were doped with different percentages of NiO, Fe2O3 and TiO2 at nominal percentages of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.15 wt% in producing nanocomposite solder paste. Then, the solder paste has flowed in the reflow oven at the temperature of 240°C. After that, the Water Drop Test (WDT) was performed using 0.1 M NaCl solution to investigate the ion migration behaviour and Potentiodyamic Tafel Polarization technique to determine the corrosion behaviour on the solder alloys. In general, the results showed the mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) of SAC305 solder alloy increased when added of the nanoparticles of NiO, Fe2O3 and TiO2. Besides, SAC305-TiO2 has the longest MTTF in 0.1 M NaCl solution followed by SAC305-Fe2O3 and SAC305-NiO nanoparticles. This results is believed due to the presence of nanoparticles as the alloying element in the solder that hinder the process of ECM to suppress the growth of the dendrites accelerating for the short circuit occurs and causes the failure of the IPC-24 test board. The potentiodynamic polarization curve results exhibit the SAC305 with nanoparticles decreased the corrosion rate compared with SAC305 solder alloy only. SAC305 with NiO and TiO2 have slightly lower corrosion rates compared with Fe2O3 nanoparticles. Therefore, SAC305 reinforced by TiO2, Fe2O3 and NiO nanoparticles exhibited excellent ECM and corrosion resistance behaviours in the 0.1 M NaCl solution.