PCB Side Research Articles

Solder joint reliability performance study and shear characterization of low-Ag SAC lead-free solders for handheld application

As handheld electronic products move toward smaller and thinner form factor, the demand of high reliability under stringent field usage also increasing. Drop test, based on the JEDEC JESD22-B111A, accompanied with temperature cycling (TC) test, based on JEDEC JESD22-A104F, are two of the most critical board-level reliability tests for handheld makers. In terms of solder joint reliability (SJR), total 7 candidates of LF35-liked lead-free solder alloys are investigated for its drop performance, and TC reliability evaluation. Among 7 solders, leg 4 and 5 exhibit both decent drop and TC behavior, which are likely owing to the silver (Ag) precipitation hardening and bismuth (Bi) solid solution hardening effect respectively. In addition, the shearing mechanical characterization of 7 solder alloys are being studied. Shear strength of leg 4 and 5 shows higher strength value than others. In terms of failure analysis under drop test, three main fracture modes are observed, including via cracking at PCB side, solder/intermetallic compound (IMC) cracking at package side, and Cu trace broken at package side. Furthermore, in terms of failure modes of TC test, solder/IMC cracking at package side are the main fracture modes. In summary, this study provides an overall reliability performance mapping for 7 solders, and list out a table comprising of shear strength, void% analysis, TC reliability, and drop reliability performance for each LF35 solders which lays out potential future solder alloy to meet higher handheld phone drop reliability margin.

A Novel Lead-Free Low-Temperature Solder Paste for Wafer-Level Package Application

An In-containing low-temperature solder paste (DFLT) has been developed and successfully used in mobile phone board-stacking application. It is now being tried for main-board application, targeting at using lower-temperature reflow profiles but delivering at least the comparable reliability to the mainstream SAC305. The customized drop-shock packages and the daisy-chained WLP256 assemblies were reflowed under a variety of reflow profiles, in which peak temperatures ranged from 200o C up to 240o C. SAC305 has been used as the control leg reflowed under a traditional 240o C peak temperature lead-free reflow profile. The joint morphology changed with the reflow profiles. Under the 200o C peak reflow, hybrid joints were formed in which the mixing zone, dominated by DFLT, was present at the PCB side while the SAC305 ball at the chip side maintained the original morphology. Increasing the reflow peak temperature led to the fully-merged SAC305 ball with DFLT and, finally the formation of the homogeneous joint. Based on the reflow profile, DFLT has shown the drop-shock performance (g-force>6000g) comparable to or substantially better than SAC305, in which 220o C peak reflow allows DFLT having the drop-shock performance more than 90% better than SAC305. Temperature cycling test (TCT) has been done with the profile of -40 to 125o C and 20 minutes dwelling time. Similar to drop-shock, depending on the reflow profiles DFLT has the TCT performance outperforming SAC305. Reflow under a peak temperature of 210o C results in best TCT performance among all profiles. Although the reflow profiles impacts the performance ranking, the failure modes remain the similar for all the assemblies in drop-shock and TCT, respectively.

Research on thermal fatigue failure mechanism of BGA solder joints based on microstructure evolution

SAC305 (Sn-3.0 %Ag-0.5 %Cu) BGA (ball grid array) solder joints were subjected to thermal cycling. As the number of thermal cycles increased, the thickness of IMCs (intermetallic compounds) increased accordingly. The interface evolutions of the BGA-chip and BGA-PCB (printed circuit board) interfaces were different. On the chip side, the main component of the IMCs was (Cu,Ni)6Sn5, which might form a fine network crack structure with the Ni layer under thermal stress. On the PCB side, Pb particles and the IMC Cu6Sn5 showed a weak ability to coordinate the relative deformation. Grain boundary cracks were easily generated at the BGA-PCB interface and developed into transcrystalline cracks, leading to a high failure rate.

Failure behavior of flip chip solder joint under coupling condition of thermal cycling and electrical current

In this work, the failure behavior of a commercial chip size packaging (CSP) with flip chip solder joint was investigated under the coupling condition of thermal cycling and electrical current. The damage behavior of solder joint was real-time monitored through the electrical resistance response. The microstructure evolution under the coupling condition were observed. The failure was classified as three modes, i.e., the cracking within solder on the PCB side (mode I), the cracking along the solder/IMC interface (mode II) and the detachment between the solder and chip due to the complete dissolving of Cu UBM layer (mode III). At low current density the mode I accounted for a large percentage while the mode II and mode III accounted for a large percentage at high current density. Based on the Weibull distribution of failure life, it was found that the mean time to failure sharply decreased with the increasing current density. A lifetime prediction model was constructed for the reliability test under coupling condition of thermal cycling and electrical current.

Random vibration reliability of BGA lead-free solder joint

Solder joint fatigue failure under vibration loading has been a great concern in microelectronic industry. High-cycle fatigue failure of lead-free solder joints has not been adequately addressed, especially under random vibration loading. This study aims to understand the lead-free solder joint behavior of BGA packages under different random vibration loadings. At first, non-contact TV Laser holography technology was adopted to conduct experimental modal analysis of the test vehicle (printed circuit board assembly) in order to understand its dynamic characteristics. Then, its first order natural frequency was used as the center frequency and narrow-band random vibration fatigue tests with different kinds of acceleration power spectral density (PSD) amplitudes were respectively carried out. Electrical continuity through each BGA package is monitored during the vibration event in order to detect the failure of package-to-board interconnects. The typical dynamic voltage histories of failed solder joints were obtained simultaneously. Thirdly, failed solder joints were cross-sectioned and metallurgical analysis was applied to investigate the failure mechanisms of BGA lead-free solder joints under random vibration loading. The results show that the failure mechanisms of BGA lead-free solder joint vary as the acceleration PSD amplitude increases. Solder joint failure locations are changed from the solder bump body of the PCB side to the solder ball neck, finally to the Ni/intermetallic compound (IMC) interface of the package side. The corresponding failure modes are also converted from ductile fracture to brittle fracture with the increase of vibration intensity.

Optical Waveguide End Facet Roughness and Optical Coupling Loss

This paper investigates the end facet roughness of multimode polymer channel waveguides fabricated on FR4 printed circuit boards, PCBs, when cut at right angles to their optical axis by milling routers for optical butt-coupling connectors and compares it with that resulting from dicing saws and polishing and proposes a novel end facet treatment. RMS surface roughness of waveguide end facets, measured by AFMs, are compared for a range of rotation speeds and translation speeds of a milling router. It was found that one-flute routers gave significantly less rough surfaces than two or three-flute routers. The best results were achieved for a one-flute router when the milling bit was inserted from the PCB side of the board with a rotation speed of 15,000 rpm and a translation speed of 0.25 m/min which minimized the waveguide core end facet RMS roughness to 183 ± 13 nm and gave input optical coupling loss of 1.7 dB ± 0.5 B and output optical coupling loss of 2.0 dB ± 0.7 dB. The lowest RMS roughness was obtained at chip loads of 16 μm/revolution. High rotation speeds should be avoided as smearing of the end facet occurs possibly due to polymer heating and softening. For the first time to our knowledge, channel waveguide optical insertion loss is shown to be linearly proportional to the ratio of the waveguide core end facet RMS roughness to its autocorrelation length. A new fabrication technique for cut waveguide end facet treatment is proposed and demonstrated which reduces the insertion loss by 2.60 dB ± 1.3 dB which is more than that achieved by the closest available index matching fluid which gave 2.23 dB ± 1.2 dB. The new fabrication method gives a more robust end facet for use in commercial products.

Thermal Cycling Analysis of BGA Solder Joint Reliability

The solder joint reliability of semiconductor package interconnects is critical to product durability. A dominant failure mode is solder fatigue due to the CTE mismatch between BGA component and PCB at thermal cycling. It is well known that besides thermal expansion mismatch of component and board, the solder joint geometry has a great impact on fatigue behavior and time to failure. In this study, a combination of Surface Evolver and finite element analysis are use to predict the solder joint shapes for the assembly of medium pin count BGA's and to estimate the reliability at accelerated temperature cycling conditions. Results of Surface Evolver are compared with the assumption of a truncated sphere. The solder shape predictions are applied for a subsequent thermo-mechanical analysis of the BGA assembly. Inelastic creep deformation is evaluated for critical solder balls, and the Coffin-Manson relation is used to estimate the solder joint lifetime. The entire simulation procedure will be demonstrated for a product design study for high reliability automotive BGA's. A fractional factorial design is defined that considers solder sphere diameter and solder pad sizes on BGA substrate and on PCB side. Resulting creep values and lifetime estimates will be compared.

Reliability study of board-level lead-free interconnections under sequential thermal cycling and drop impact

The sequential thermal cycling (TC) and drop impact test are more reasonable to evaluate the reliability of lead-free solder interconnections compared with separate TC test or drop impact test. In this paper, sequential TC (−40 °C/125 °C, 13 min of soak time, 12 min of dwell time, totally 50 min of cycle time) and drop impact test (a sine impact pulse with a peak acceleration of 1500 g and a duration time of 0.5 ms) were conducted to study the failure mechanism of solder interconnections under sequential TC and drop impact test. The TC load has larger effect on the Cu/solder interface at the PCB side than that of Ni (P)/solder interface at the component side. For the thermally cycled samples, the failure location of solder interconnections under drop impact has changed from initiation and propagation along the thin reaction layer (mode 1) between intermetallic compound (IMC) layer and Ni (P) pad at the component side to initiation at the bulk solder and propagation along the Cu 3Sn IMC layer (mode 2) or entirely through the bulk solder (mode 3) at the PCB side. The failure mechanism has also changed from the entirely brittle crack to the mixture of fatigue crack and brittle crack.

Reliability in Mechatronics Systems from TEM, SEM and SE Material Analysis

AbstractMechatronic systems designed to comply to new EU directives are studied through interconnections by electronic or photonic probes, SEM, TEM, SE or 3D Tomography. Leaded and lead free modules assembled by standard interconnection technologies are studied for robustness relative to thermal accelerated life tests. Results obtained from JEOL 6060LV SEM and Optical Microscopy show that although slow growth rate of inter-metallics (IMC) is consistent with expected reliability, they are responsible for propagation of cracks especially in the presence of gold on PCB side. Innovative Low Temperature Joining (LTJ) technology applied to nano or micro silver pastes which should reduce IMC effects are tested on mechatronic systems. Results obtained from SEM, TEM and 3D Tomography will be shown as well as non destructive Spectroscopic Ellipsometry studies of samples. Pressureless LTJ technology is unsuitable for robust interconnection.