Solder Joint Thermal Fatigue Research Articles

The role of microstructure in the thermal fatigue of solder joints

Thermal fatigue is a common failure mode in electronic solder joints, yet the role of microstructure is incompletely understood. Here, we quantify the evolution of microstructure and damage in Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu joints throughout a ball grid array (BGA) package using EBSD mapping of localised subgrains, recrystallisation and heavily coarsened Ag3Sn. We then interpret the results with a multi-scale modelling approach that links from a continuum model at the package/board scale through to a crystal plasticity finite element model at the microstructure scale. We measure and explain the dependence of damage evolution on (i) the β-Sn crystal orientation(s) in single and multigrain joints, and (ii) the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between tin grains in cyclic twinned multigrain joints. We further explore the relative importance of the solder microstructure versus the joint location in the array. The results provide a basis for designing optimum solder joint microstructures for thermal fatigue resistance.

A multi-scale approach to microstructure-sensitive thermal fatigue in solder joints

This paper presents a multi-scale modelling approach to investigate the underpinning mechanisms of microstructure-sensitive damage of single crystal Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu (wt%, SAC305) solder joints of a Ball Grid Array (BGA) board assembly subject to thermal cycling. The multi-scale scheme couples board-scale modelling at the continuum macro-scale and individual solder modelling at the crystal micro-scale. Systematic studies of tin crystal orientation and its role in fatigue damage have been compared to experimental observations. Crystallographic orientation is examined with respect to damage development, providing evidence-based optimal solder microstructural design for in-service thermomechanical fatigue.

Thermal Fatigue Modelling and Simulation of Flip Chip Component Solder Joints under Cyclic Thermal Loading

Thermal Fatigue of flip chip component solder joints is widely existing in thermal energy systems, which imposes a great challenge to operational safety. In order to investigate the influential factors, this paper develops a model to analyze thermal fatigue, based on the Darveaux energy method. Under cyclic thermal loading, a theoretical heat transfer and thermal stress model is developed for the flip chip components and the thermal fatigue lives of flip chip component solder joints are analyzed. The model based simulation results show the effects of environmental and power parameters on thermal fatigue life. It is indicated that under cyclic thermal loading, the solder joint with the shortest life in a package of flip chip components is located at the outer corner point of the array. Increment in either power density or ambient temperature or the decrease in either power conversion time or ambient pressure will result in short thermal fatigue lives of the key solder joints in the flip chip components. In addition, thermal fatigue life is more sensitive to power density and ambient temperature than to power conversion time and ambient air pressure.

Nonlinear Damage Accumulation Rule for Solder Life Prediction Under Combined Temperature Profile With Varying Amplitude

Due to a mismatch of the coefficient of thermal expansion, electronic solder joints experience cyclic shear strain, which ultimately leads to fatigue failure. Traditional predictions of solder joint thermal fatigue life that use the experimental data or the physics-of-failure model often assume a regular profile. For complex temperature profiles, the linear accumulation rule is typically used to integrate the superposition effect. However, the linear rule was proved not applicable to most of the complex loading or temperature conditions. Based on the damage curve theory and the fatigue crack propagation theory, a novel nonlinear accumulation rule has been deduced for solder joint life predictions under irregular profiles, which were composed of two standard temperature cycles and may be experienced by phased-mission system. Four groups of experiments were conducted for ball grid array package solder joints with different dimensions and materials to determine parameters of the proposed nonlinear accumulation rule. The finite-element simulation method was used to extend this rule to more general cases for application. Compared to Miner’s linear accumulation rule, prediction of solder joint thermal fatigue life via the proposed nonlinear accumulation rule is closer to the accelerated life test results of real-world electronic solder joints under a combined temperature profile.

The Influence of PV Module Materials and Design on Solder Joint Thermal Fatigue Durability

Finite element model (FEM) simulations have been performed to elucidate the effect of flat plate photovoltaic (PV) module materials and design on PbSn eutectic solder joint thermal fatigue durability. The statistical method of Latin Hypercube sampling was employed to investigate the sensitivity of simulated damage to each input variable. Variables of laminate material properties and their thicknesses were investigated. Using analysis of variance, we determined that the rate of solder fatigue was most sensitive to solder layer thickness, with copper ribbon and silicon thickness being the next two most sensitive variables. By simulating both accelerated thermal cycles (ATCs) and PV cell temperature histories through two characteristic days of service, we determined that the acceleration factor between the ATC and outdoor service was independent of the variables sampled in this study. This result implies that an ATC test will represent a similar time of outdoor exposure for a wide range of module designs. This is an encouraging result for the standard ATC that must be universally applied across all modules.

Investigation on thermal fatigue of SnAgCu, Sn100C, and SnPbAg solder joints in varying temperature environments

Thermal cycling tests have been performed for a range of electronic components intended for avionic applications, assembled with SAC305, SN100C and SnPbAg solder alloys. Two temperature profiles have been used, the first ranging between −20°C and +80°C (TC1), and the second between −55°C and +125°C (TC2). High level of detail is provided for the solder alloy composition and the component package dimensions, and statistical analysis, partially supported by FE modeling, is reported. The test results confirm the feasibility of SAC305 as a replacement for SnPbAg under relatively benign thermomechanical loads. Furthermore, the test results serve as a starting point for estimation of damage accumulation in a critical solder joint in field conditions, with increased accuracy by avoiding data reduction. A computationally efficient method that was earlier introduced by the authors and tested on relatively mild temperature environments has been significantly improved to become applicable on extended temperature range, and it has been applied to a PBGA256 component with SAC305 solder in TC1 conditions. The method, which utilizes interpolated response surfaces generated by finite element modeling, extends the range of techniques that can be employed in the design phase to predict thermal fatigue of solder joints under field temperature conditions.

Characterization of IMC layer and its effect on thermomechanical fatigue life of Sn–3.8Ag–0.7Cu solder joints

Intermetallic compound (IMC) growth was investigated under isothermal aging condition at 125°C for up to 500h. The evolution in the IMC morphology and microstructure were observed at four aging time conditions for 0, 120, 260 and 500h, respectively. Solid state IMC growth thickness measurements were determined from scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations for Cu–Sn and Cu–Ni–Sn IMC systems. The Young’s modulus and hardness of the IMCs were determined by nanoindentation tests. A finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out to model the effect of the IMC layer on the solder joint thermal fatigue life. The nanoindentation mechanical properties of Cu6Sn5 and CuNiSn IMCs were modeled with different IMC thicknesses in the FEA simulation to study the effect of the IMC growth on the fatigue life of the solder joint. It was shown that the IMC layer reduces the fatigue life of the solder joints and thick IMC layer results in a lower fatigue life. In addition, thermal cycling test and analysis for plastic ball grid array (PBGA) package with Sn–3.8Ag–0.7Cu Pb-free solder joints was performed. The mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) for the PBGA solder joints was determined, which was used for validating the FEA simulation results.

Prognostics of thermal fatigue failure of solder joints in avionic equipment

A practical method has been suggested for solder joint thermal fatigue prognostics, which enables real-time fatigue calculations based on uncompressed temperature data embedded in a host system that performs safety-critical operations. The accuracy of the prognosticated remaining useful life depends on the level of details captured in the model, and the level of confidence from validation efforts.

Application of Finite Element Method in Optimal Design of Flip-Chip Package

More and more solder joints in circuit boards and electronic products are changing to lead free solder, placing an emphasis on lead free solder joint reliability. Solder joint fatigue failure is a serious reliability concern in area array technologies. In this study, the effects of substrate materials on the solder joint thermal fatigue life were investigated by finite element model. Accelerated temperature cycling loading was imposed to evaluate the reliability of solder joints. The thermal strain/stress in solder joints of flip chip assemblies with different substrates was compared, and the fatigue life of solder joints were evaluated by Darveaux’s crack initiation and growth model. The results show the mechanisms of substrate flexibility on improving solder joint thermal fatigue.

Numerical Simulation for the Thermal Fatigue of Flip Chip Solder Joints

Fatigue failure of solder joints is a serious reliability concern in area array technologies. A non-linear finite element model was made to study the effects of underfill material and substrate flexibility on solder joint thermal fatigue. Accelerated temperature cycling loading was imposed to evaluate the reliability of solder joints in test flip chip assembly. The results show that the underfill material and substrate flexibility can improve the distribution of stress/strain and reduce the magnitude of stress/strain in the solder joints. Therefore, the reliability of solder joints under thermal cycling condition can be enhanced by applying underfill material and selecting the Flex substrates during temperature cycling.

Critical Review of the Engelmaier Model for Solder Joint Creep Fatigue Reliability

A solder interconnect fatigue life model was developed by Werner Engelmaier in the early 1980s as an improvement upon the inelastic strain range-based Coffin-Manson model. As developed, the model provides a first-order estimate of cycles to failure for SnPb solder interconnects under power and thermal cycles. While the model has been widely adopted for SnPb solder joint reliability prediction, many issues that arise from simplifications in formulating input model parameters as well as from the complex physics of solder degradation challenge the model's ability to accurately estimate cycles to failure. Deficiencies with the model have been reported by a number of researchers. This paper reviews and summarizes the major issues with the Engelmaier model in its applicability to predict solder joint thermal fatigue life.

Simulation based analysis of secondary effects on solder fatigue

Secondary effects on thermal fatigue of solder joints, which frequently have been neglected, were studied by means of the finite element method (FEM). Based on a semi-empirical approach to predict fatigue life by evaluating the cyclic accumulated equivalent creep strain or energy density, effects of organic boards intrinsic properties on solder joint fatigue were investigated. Aspects of more realistic FR-4 board modelling were studied, in particular concerning its in-plane anisotropy and intrinsic warpage behaviour. Intrinsic board warpage was measured on test board level as well as for boards from series production. High intrinsic warpage was in particular found for several test boards. The effects for the worst case scenario observed so far were analysed for both first level and second level interconnects. The change in predicted fatigue life varied between 30% and 500%, the latter most critical effects were found at large QFN components. Another secondary effect studied was to include the frequently neglected interfacial intermetallics into FEM. It turned out that for components with relatively large standoff like LFBGAs the effects were actually negligible, but for the highly miniaturized components like chip resistors CR0201 they are the decisive factor.

Probabilistic approaches and reliability design of power modules

The weak point for the standard power IGBT modules in terms of reliability is thermal fatigue in solder joints due to the thermal stress induced by constitutive materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). So far, many researches are aimed at defining accurate finite element simulation with constitutive equations of materials behaviour and fatigue failure relation connecting the inelastic strain and the number of cycles before failure. Even if these relations can be clearly identified, we can see that the validation of the finite element model is difficult due to the scatter of input data. In fact, the fatigue life of solder joints strongly depends on geometric shape, solders behaviour (due to the process) and applied load. The aim of this paper is to estimate the probability of failure of power module with the structural reliability methods. Thus the geometric, materials and loading variables are considered as random variables and the failure mode is modelled with the called limit state function. The two methods, response surface method and neural network method, are used here to evaluate the reliability of the lead-free solder. The sensitivities of the mean and the standard deviation for each random variable have been evaluated.

Fracture mechanics analysis of the effect of substrate flexibility on solder joint reliability

Solder joint fatigue failure is a serious reliability concern in area array technologies, such as flip chip and ball grid array packages of integrated-circuit chips. The selection of different substrate materials could affect solder joint thermal fatigue life significantly. The reliability of solder joints in real flip chip assembly with both rigid and compliant substrates was evaluated by the accelerated temperature cycling test and thermal mechanical analysis. The mechanism of substrate flexibility on improving solder joint thermal fatigue lifetime was investigated by fracture mechanics methods. Two different methods (crack tip opening displacement, CTOD and virtual crack closure technique, VCCT) are used to determine the crack tip parameters which are considered as the indices of reliability of solder joints, including the strain energy release rate and phase angle for the different crack lengths and temperatures. It was found that the thermal fatigue lifetime of solder joints in flip chip on flex assembly (FCOF) was much longer than that of flip chip on rigid board assembly (FCOB). The flex substrates could dissipate energy that otherwise would be absorbed by solder joints, that is, substrate flexibility has a great effect on solder joint reliability and the reliability improvement was attributed to flex buckling or bending during thermal cycling.

Effect of substrate flexibility on solder joint reliability. Part II: finite element modeling

Solder joint fatigue failure is a serious reliability concern in area array technologies, such as flip chip and ball grid array packages of integrated-circuit chips. The selection of different substrate materials could affect solder joint thermal fatigue life significantly. The mechanism of substrate flexibility on improving solder joint thermal fatigue was investigated by thermal mechanical analysis (TMA) technique and finite element modeling. The reliability of solder joints in real flip chip assembly with both rigid and compliant substrates was evaluated by accelerated temperature cycling test. Finite element simulations were conducted to study the reliability of solder joints in flip chip on flex assembly (FCOF) and flip chip on rigid board assembly (FCOB) applying Anand model. Based on the finite element analysis results, the fatigue lives of solder joints were obtained by Darveaux’s crack initiation and growth model. The thermal strain/stress in solder joints of flip chip assemblies with different substrates were compared. The results of finite element analysis showed a good agreement with the experimental results. It was found that the thermal fatigue lifetime of FCOF solder joints was much longer than that of FCOB solder joints. The thermal strain/stress in solder joints could be reduced by flex buckling or bending and flex substrates could dissipate energy that otherwise would be absorbed by solder joints. It was concluded that substrate flexibility has a great effect on solder joint reliability and the reliability improvement was attributed to flex buckling or bending during temperature cycling.

Influence of the thermo-mechanical residual state on the power assembly modellization

During the assembly process of a power chip on its thermal dissipator, it appears a residual stress store, due to the difference between the thermal expansion coefficients of the assembly components: silicon, solder alloy, copper. The goal of this study is to show the influence of the residual stresses and strains on the solder joint thermal fatigue. Three numerical simulations of thermal cycles have been carried out by taking into account the residual stresses or not. A simple assembly model is used to reduce the simulation run time. For each case, the strain energy density accumulated in the solder joint is computed during each thermal cycle. The comparison of these values for each case shows that the residual stresses must be taken into account in the assembly lifetime study.

Effect of substrate flexibility on solder joint reliability. Part II: finite element modeling

Solder joint fatigue failure is a serious reliability concern in area array technologies, such as flip chip and ball grid array packages of integrated-circuit chips. The selection of different substrate materials could affect solder joint thermal fatigue life significantly. The mechanism of substrate flexibility on improving solder joint thermal fatigue was investigated by thermal mechanical analysis (TMA) technique and finite element modeling. The reliability of solder joints in real flip chip assembly with both rigid and compliant substrates was evaluated by accelerated temperature cycling test. Finite element simulations were conducted to study the reliability of solder joints in flip chip on flex assembly (FCOF) and flip chip on rigid board assembly (FCOB) applying Anand model. Based on the finite element analysis results, the fatigue lives of solder joints were obtained by Darveaux’s crack initiation and growth model. The thermal strain/stress in solder joints of flip chip assemblies with different substrates were compared. The results of finite element analysis showed a good agreement with the experimental results. It was found that the thermal fatigue lifetime of FCOF solder joints was much longer than that of FCOB solder joints. The thermal strain/stress in solder joints could be reduced by flex buckling or bending and flex substrates could dissipate energy that otherwise would be absorbed by solder joints. It was concluded that substrate flexibility has a great effect on solder joint reliability and the reliability improvement was attributed to flex buckling or bending during temperature cycling.

Coarsening in BGA Solder Balls: Modeling and Experimental Evaluation

The reliability of solder joints in electronic packaging is becoming more important as the ball grid array (BGA) develops rapidly into the most popular packaging technology. Thermal fatigue of solder joints has been a reliability concern in the electronic packaging industry since the introduction of surface mount technology (SMT). Microstructural coarsening (phase growth) is considered to be closely related to thermomechanical fatigue failure. Many researchers proposed coarsening models for bulk scale metals. But these models have never been verified for micron-scale actual BGA solder balls. In the present study, three different phase growth models are investigated experimentally on BGA solder balls in a real-life electronic package. Model simulations obtained from three models were compared against test data. The best performing model was chosen for finite element fatigue reliability studies based on continuum damage mechanics.

Effects of solder joint shape and height on thermal fatigue lifetime

Solder joint thermal fatigue failure is a major concern for area array technologies such as flip chip and ball grid array technologies. Solder joint geometry is an important factor influencing thermal fatigue lifetime. In this paper, the effects of solder joint shape and height on thermal fatigue lifetime are studied. Solder joint fatigue lifetime was evaluated using accelerated temperate cycling and adhesion test. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDX), scanning acoustic microscopy (nondestructive evaluation) and optical microscopy were utilized to examine the integrity of the joint and to detect cracks and other defects before and during accelerated fatigue tests. Our accelerated temperature cycling test clearly shows that solder joint fatigue failure process consists of three phases: crack initiation, crack propagation and catastrophic failure. Experimental results indicated that both hourglass shape and great standoff height could improve solder joint fatigue lifetime, with standoff height being the more effective factor. Experimental data suggested that shape is the dominant factor affecting crack initiation time while standoff height is the major factor influencing crack propagation time.

Effect of substrate flexibility on solder joint reliability

Solder joint fatigue failure is a serious reliability concern in area array technologies, such as flip chip and ball grid array packages of integrated-circuit chips. The selection of different substrate materials could affect solder joint thermal fatigue lifetime significantly. The reliability of solder joint in flip chip assembly for both rigid and compliant substrates was evaluated by accelerated temperature cycling test. Experimental results strongly showed that the thermal fatigue lifetime of solder joints in flip chip on flex assembly was much improved over that in flip chip on rigid substrate assembly. Debonding area of solder joints in flip chip on rigid board and flip chip on flex assemblies were investigated, and it was found that flex substrate could slow down solder joint crack propagation rate. The mechanism of substrate flexibility on improving solder joint thermal fatigue was investigated by thermal mechanical analysis (TMA) technique. TMA results showed that flex substrate buckles or bends during temperature cycling and this phenomenon was discussed from the point of view of mechanics of the flip chip assembly during temperature cycling process. It was indicated that the thermal strain and stress in solder joints could be reduced by flex buckling or bending and flex substrates could dissipate energy that otherwise would be absorbed by solder joints. It was concluded that substrate flexibility has a great effect on solder joint reliability and the reliability improvement was attributed to flex buckling or bending during temperature cycling.