Growth Kinetics of Intermetallic Compound and Interfacial Reactions in Pb-Free Flip Chip Solder Bump during Solid State Isothermal Aging

Abstract

In the present work, the growth kinetics of intermetallic compound layer formed in Sn-3.5Ag flip chip solder joints by solid-state isothermal aging was examined at temperatures between 80 and 150 °C for 0 to 60 days. The bumping for the flip chip devices was performed using an electroless under bump metallization. The quantitative analyses were performed on the intermetallic compound layer thickness as a function of aging time and aging temperature. The layer growth of the Ni3Sn4 intermetallic compound followed a parabolic law within a given temperature range. As a whole, because the value of the time exponent (n) is approximately equal to 0.5, the layer growth of the intermetallic compound was mainly controlled by diffusion mechanism in the temperature range studied. The apparent activation energy of the Ni3Sn4 intermetallic was 49.63 kJ/mol.