With the development of smaller and higher density surface mount packages like Quad Flat No-lead (QFN) and Ball Grid Array (BGA), solder joints¡¦ strength of the electronic components has a greater impact on the reliability of an end product. Also, the decrease in size of consumer products such as cellular phones, PDAs and MP3 players, has increased the frequency of accidental drops resulting in solder joint cracks and eventually malfunction of the products. With legislation put in place by government and industrial bodies, electronics companies are driven to eliminate the uses of lead in their products. It thus leads to the concern of reliability of lead-free solders as interconnects. The present work aims at studying the effects of drop impact on the strength of solder joint of lead free solder (Sn4Ag0.5Cu) and BGA substrate metal finish electrolytic Ni and Au. In this study, the effects of internal stresses in BGA Ni layer and Pre-treatment Micro-Etching processing on the strength of Sn/Ag/Cu solder joint are investigated. The drop test and peel off test are adopted in testing the strength according to the standard of JEDEC. The drop test results have shown that the compressive internal stresses in the Ni layer have worse effects on the joint strength than tensile internal stresses can affect. The failure modes are analyzed and can be concluded that all failures occur at the interface of IMC and the surface of Ni layer on BGA substrate. The drop test results have shown also that the strength of the solder joint with the lower concentration of SPS in pre-treatment micro-etching is stronger and all the failures occur at the interface of IMC and the surface of PCB Cu Pad. Comparing with the effect of internal stress in Ni layer, SPS concentration in pre-treatment micro-etching to affect the solder joint strength is more significant.

During their production and normal use, electronic packages experience large temperature excursions, leading to high thermo-mechanical stress gradients that cause fatigue failure of the solder joints. In order to prevent premature failure and prolong the fatigue life of solder joints, there is a pressing need for the characterization of the solder, especially lead-free solder, at the micro-level (joint size). The characterization and modeling of solder behavior at the appropriate scale is a major issue. However, direct measurement techniques are not applicable to characterize the deformation response of solder joints because of their micro scale dimensions. Therefore, a non-contact measurement technique utilizing a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) in conjunction with Digital Image Correlation (DIC) has been developed. Validation was achieved by performing a four-point bending test in both an in-house optical system with DIC and inside the SEM. This non-contact measurement technique was then used to extract the stress-strain response of the solder. Mechanical tests were performed on solder joints that were created using the same type of solder balls used in the electronic industry and were representative of normal joint scales. The SEM-DIC technique has been proven to be applicable for the determining the stress-strain response of solder material at the micro-scale.This study resulted in a validated material characterization technique specifically designed for micro-scale material response. One of the main contributions of this study is that the method is a lot simpler and cheaper, yet highly effective, compared to the previous methods. This technique is also readily applicable to the measurement of the stress-strain response of any micro-scale specimen, such as other metals, polymers, etc. Also, the measured displacement field by obtained by DIC can be used as the base for calculating the strain field on the surface of a specimen.

ABSTRACT In package, it¡¦s easy to have defects in the solder joint, for the request of environment protection, lead-free solder research is one of the most important topics now. In soldering, the adhesion, diffusion barrier, and wettability of the interface between UBM and a lead-free solder, and the caused IMC structure that are important elements to influence long-term reliability tests. The thesis is aimed to investigate the combination of pure tin/Al-NiV-Cu UBM/STD Au substrate under reliability tests. The samples are bare dies in which the combination is pure tin/ Al-NiV-Cu UBM and packages of is pure tin/Al-NiV-Cu UBM/STD Au substrate. The goals are to realize the mechanical properties under multiple reflows and long term HTST tests with different temperatures and the operational life. We also uses SEM to observe the growth of IMC and the failure modes that help us to realize the connection between failure modes and IMC. The results of experiment can be concluded as follows. In a bare die, 260¢Jmultiple reflows test causes delamination between IMC and die, but doesn¡¦t affect the mechanical properties of it, and HTST test lowers the bump shear strength of it. In package, multiple reflows test and HTST test lower the mechanical properties significantly, the result also means that the adhesion between bump and die will drop significantly as tests go on. In HTOL test with the conditions of 150¢J and 320mA, the average stable service time of the package is 892 hours, and the average ultimate service time of the package is 1,053 hours, most probable failure site is in R1 joint.

Due to the introduction of Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive Pb containing solders have been banned from the electronics industry and a reliable replacement for the Sn-Pb solder is being sought for by industry around the globe. Medical and Defense industries are currently exempt from the directive and use Sn-Pb solder in their manufacturing process. The switch to lead-free has led component manufacturers to use different lead-free solders, thus causing mixed solder joints of lead-free components with Sn-Pb paste. In this study, mixed assembly microstructures and mechanical properties were examined. Furthermore, six novel lead-free solders were prepared using SAC105 solder doped with elements: Ti, Ni, Mn, La, Ce and Y. The solidification microstructures, fracture behavior and wetting properties of these solders were evaluated to find a suitable replacement for SAC105 solder.

Due to the introduction of Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive Pb containing solders have been banned from the electronics industry and a reliable replacement for the Sn-Pb solder is being sought for by industry around the globe. Medical and Defense industries are currently exempt from the directive and use Sn-Pb solder in their manufacturing process. The switch to lead-free has led component manufacturers to use different lead-free solders, thus causing mixed solder joints of lead-free components with Sn-Pb paste. In this study, mixed assembly microstructures and mechanical properties were examined. Furthermore, six novel lead-free solders were prepared using SAC105 solder doped with elements: Ti, Ni, Mn, La, Ce and Y. The solidification microstructures, fracture behavior and wetting properties of these solders were evaluated to find a suitable replacement for SAC105 solder.

Georgia Techs Packaging Research Centers vision of System on Package (SOP) requires that the ball grid array (BGA) package be eliminated and the integrated circuit (IC) directly assembled on the printed wiring board (PWB). Flip-Chip on board (FCOB) emerges as a viable solution which meets the industry requirements of (i) increased I/O, (ii) increased functionality and (iii) improved performance at lower costs. Nevertheless flip-chip on board (FCOB) reliability continues to be an important concern in electronic packaging industry. Moreover transition to Pb-free solder for interconnects and continuously shrinking geometries result in new modeling challenges. In addition, the integrity of the intermetallics (IMCs) at the interfaces of the solder/PWB and solder/die is one of the determinant factors in the reliability and continuity of electrical signals in flip-chip interconnects. Pb-free solder studies for the flip-chip assembly studies are limited and simplified so far, not fully incorporating the effect of intermetallics in the reliability. New modeling challenges involve many details, from geometry to material properties. A brittle IMC will lead to a fracture at the interface. Also IMC thickness can cause the variation in stresses in the underlying layers, causing delamination. Moreover IMC morphology can also depend on the metal finishes on the PWB. In this work, a combined numerical and experimental program has been developed to address the challenges mentioned above. The flip-chip on board assembly is modeled in 3-D for reliability studies, taking into consideration material non linearities and a 104 order of geometric variation to capture the die size in mm to sub-micron intermetallic thickness. The study intends to determine the stresses induced at the critical interfaces under thermo-mechanical loading incorporating the intermetallic material properties. Various failure modes of these assemblies were studied. Experiments were carried out for comparative reliability studies of Pb-free solder with eutectic Pb-based solder. Intermetallic formation and growth are characterized during thermal aging and its effect on reliability is determined. Parameters affecting intermetallic like under-bump Metallurgy (UBM) thicknesses are varied and its effect evaluated. Moreover experiments with three new substrate pad finishes on PWB are carried out to evaluate them as an alternative to Electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) for new Pb-free solder. The final aim of this study is to reach a better understanding of the reliability issues in FCOB.

In July 2006, the legislation of RoHS(The Restriction of the use of the Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment) is fully implemented in EU. Although the major industries have response and preparedness for lead-free products, but they have no complete solution for using lead-free solder paste to replacing tin-lead solder paste. Therefore, two major issues arose in the surface mount process which are the cost increasing and the reliability decreasing of electronic products caused by higher reflow temperature. In addition to these two issue, surface mount of LED is also faced with the problem of attenuating of light intensity of LED due to the increasing of reflow temperature. After years, the companies of solder paste product and surface mount technology accumulate a lot of processing experience and they have certain yield on reflow process of LED. In order to keep competitiveness and market share, the know-how is treated as confidential. By working with about 10 professional surface mount manufacturers, it is interesting to note that solder paste and oven temperature curve used by each manufacturer are not actually the same. By adopting the experiences of cooperation with several professional surface mount manufacturers through experiments, the purpose of this thesis is to find the optimal reflow process parameters such that the light intensity loss of the LED caused by lead-free reflow process can be reduced as much as possible. By using Taguchi method and the executed experiments , the optimal parameter-combination have found efficiently from the four parameters: the peak of reflow temperature, the peak temperature of residence time, the brand of solder and the pre-baking time of LED. The results showed that the peak reflow temperature has the greatest influence among the selected four parameters and the following is the peak temperature residence time. The light intensity loss can be reduced up to 4-9% by adopting the obtained optimal parameters.

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The interfacial reactions of Sn-Zn and Sn-Zn-Al solder balls with Au/Ni surface finish under aging at 150¢J were investigated. With microstructure evolution, quantitative analysis, elemental distribution by X-ray color mapping from an electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA), the reaction procedure of phase transformation was proposed. During the reflow, Au dissolved into the solder balls and reacted with Zn to form £^-Au3Zn7. As aging time increased, £^-Au3Zn7 transformed to £^3-AuZn4. Finally, Zn precipitated near the Au-Zn intermetallic compound. On the other hand, Zn reacted with the Ni layer and formed Ni5Zn21. But the Al-Au-Zn IMC formed at the interface of Sn-Zn-Al solder balls, the reaction of Ni with Zn was inhibited. Even though the aging time increased to 50 days, no Ni5Zn21 was observed. The Joule effect was more apparent than the electromigration in the biased solder balls. First of all, the new phase (Au, Ni)Zn4 was proposed in the biased condition and in 175¢Jaging. Secondly, the thickness of the Ni5Zn21 IMC were the same between the anode and the cathode. Finally, We directly measure the temperature of the biased solder balls which was up to 173¢J.

Solder joints are the most fragile parts in electronic package. The properties of joints made of lead-free material are harder and crisper than those of lead-contained material. They tend to break due to dynamic loading by absorbing the impact energy and result in malfunction. Thus, how to improve the reliability of contact joints made of lead-free material in dynamic loading has become an important topic for research. This work is based on JEDEC Standard JESD22 - B111 ¡§Board Level Drop Test Method of Components for Handheld Electronic Products,¡¨ and JESD22 ¡V B110 ¡§Subassembly Mechanical Shock¡¨. The setup of drop test apparatuses was used to conduct dropping tests with the impact of acceleration 1500 G, in order to acquire the reliability of SnAgCu, SnCu, and SnAg alloy, which would be compared with 63Sn37Pb. The specimens would be red-dyed for an analysis under SEM to examine the distribution of the breakage. The results were analyzed by Weibull distribution to predict Mean Time to Failure (MTTF), it is revealed that MTTF of solder joints made of Sn0.7Cu, Sn2.6Ag0.5Cu, and Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu (MTTF=355.32, 295.82, 289.54 cycles respectively) are longer than that made of 63Sn37Pb (MTTF=152.52 cycles). Notably, MTTF of alloy Sn0.7Cu is 2.3 times of solder joints of SnPb. Alloy Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu has the shortest MTTF among the three, which is also 1.89 times of alloy SnPb. That is to say, under impact of 1500G, solder joints made of Sn0.7Cu, Sn2.6Ag0.5Cu, and Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu possess greater resistance to shock than alloy 63Sn37Pb, which is in common by used at present. In addition, the breakage of solder joints mainly generated on Intermetallic Compound (IMC) and around the four corners, distributed from the periphery to the central area. Especially, those on the corners receive greater stresses due to edge effect.