Modeling of interfacial intermetallic compounds in the application of very fine lead-free solder interconnections

Abstract

Intermetallic compounds (IMCs) are formed between lead-free solders and base metals during soldering processes. The morphology as well as the amount of the IMCs, in particular the interfacial IMCs, are important to mechanical performance of the solder joints in their service environment. This is especially the case in state-of-art ultrafine-pitch wafer-level packaging, in which solder joints could become as small as 50 μm in diameter or even less. However, research addressing growth kinetics of the IMCs in the existing literature has concentrated on fitting experimental data onto a simple parabolic growth equation, which cannot account for all the complicated physics involved in the process of IMC formation. There are a few models based on Fick’s diffusion equations in the literature, which assume the growing IMC interface is planar. A combined thermodynamic–kinetic model has been derived from the relationships amongst some thermodynamic parameters; however, this model is only one dimension (1-D) in nature. 2-D models have also been proposed, e.g. an implicit boundary tracking method, and a phase field model. This paper reviews the modeling techniques in the literature for both the growth kinetics and morphology of the interfacial IMCs, under the context of lead-free soldering in very fine interconnections. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. Possible solutions to include the geometrical features of micro solder joints in the modeling of growth kinetics of interfacial IMC are presented.