Leading Prognostic Indicators for Health Management of Electronics Under Thermo-Mechanical Stresses

Abstract

Methodologies for prognostication and health monitoring can significantly impact electronic reliability for applications in which even minimal risk of failure may be unbearable. Presently, health monitoring approaches such as the built-in self-test (BIST) are based on reactive failure diagnostics and unable to determine residual-life or estimate residual-reliability [Allen 2003, Drees 2004, Gao 2002, Rosenthal 1990]. Prognostics health-monitoring (PHM) approach presented in this paper is different from state-of-art diagnostics and resides in the pre-failure-space of the electronic-system, in which no macro-indicators such as cracks or delamination exist. Applications for the presented PHM framework include, consumer applications such as automotive safety systems including front and rear impact protection system, chassis-control systems, x-by-wire systems; and defense applications such as avionics systems, naval electronic warfare systems. The presented PHM methodologies enable the estimation of prior damage in deployed electronics by interrogation of the system state. The presented methodologies will trigger repair or replacement, significantly prior to failure. The approach involves the use of condition monitoring devices which can be interrogated for damage proxies at finite time-intervals. The system’s residual life is computed based on residual-life computation algorithms. Previously, Lall, et. al. [2004, 2005, 2006] have developed several leading indicators of failure. In this paper a mathematical approach has been presented to calculate the prior damage in electronics subjected to cyclic and isothermal thermo-mechanical loads. Electronic components operating in a harsh environment may be subjected to both temperature variations in addition to thermal aging during use-life. Data has been collected for leading indicators of failure for 95.5Sn4Ag0.5Cu first-level interconnects under both single and sequential application of cyclic and isothermal thermo-mechanical loads. Methodology for the determination of prior damage history has been presented using non-linear least-squares method based interrogation techniques. The methodology presented used the Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm. Test vehicle includes various area-array packaging architectures soldered on Immersion Ag finish, subjected to thermal cycling in the range of −40°C to 125°C and isothermal aging at 125°C.