Abstract
Due to rapid growth of the microelectronics industry, packaged devices with small form factors, low costs, high power performance, and increased efficiency have become of high demand in the market. To realize the current market development trend, flip chip interconnection and System-in-Package (SiP) are some of the promising packaging solutions developed. However, a surprising amount of surface mount technology (SMT) defects are associated with the use of lead-free solder paste and methods by which the paste is applied. Two such defects are solder extrusion and tombstoning. Considerable amount of defects associated with solder overflow are found on chip-on-flip-chip (COFC) SiP in hearing aids. Through the use of design of experiments (DOE), lead-free solder defect causes on hearing aids application can be better understood and subsequently reduced or eliminated. This paper will examine the failure modes of solder extrusion and tombstoning that occurred when two different types of lead-free solders, Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) and BiAgX were used within a SiP for attachment of surface mount devices (SMD) chip components for hearing aid applications. The practical application and analysis of lead-free solder for hearing aids will include the comprehensive failure analysis of the SMD components and compare the modeling and analysis of the two different solder types through the DOE process.
