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.
