I/O Printed Circuit Board Assemblies; Recent Learning in Mechanical Stress Analysis, Verification Testing, and Post-test Analysis Techniques and Results

Recent high-end server designs have included new Input / Output (I/O) printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies consisting of a variety of form factors, electronic design layouts, and packaging assembly characteristics. To insure the required functional and reliability aspects are established and maintained, new mechanical analysis and verification testing techniques have been recently devised. A description of the design application set, the analysis tools and techniques applied, and the verification testing completed, including the associated measurement techniques as well as post-testing analysis methods and results are presented. Also included are the recent PCB raw card characterization efforts whose results have been applied as material property inputs to the analysis to improve analytical-to-empirical correlation. Included within the application set are both the use of custom designed cards as well as industry standard, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) cards that are packaged within custom enclosures. Given packaged and unpackaged (i.e., as installed in a higher-level rack system assembly) fragility testing requirements, new analysis techniques exploiting the capabilities of LS-DYNA have been used to provide a predictive means to support both initial as well as iterative design levels. In addition, these analysis results are also used to identify locations for measurement sensor placement employed during mechanical verification testing. Thermal shock and mechanical shock and vibration verification testing details and results are provided describing the conditions applied to simulate assembly shipping conditions, both as packaged as well as in situ to the higher-level of assembly. Included with this is a discussion with respect to post-test analysis techniques and results, including the use of both microscopic cross-section analysis as well as dye-pry assessments. Concluding, continued and future activities are described as “best practices” for the application of this methodology as part of the end-to-end development process.