Low Temperature Material Characterization of Lead-Free SAC Solder Alloy at High Strain Rate After Prolonged High Temperature Storage

During operations, handling, and storage in extreme environmental applications including aerospace, defense and automotive, the electronics may be exposed to high and low operating temperatures. In automotive underhood applications, the temperature can vary especially from −65 to +200 °C. Under prolonged storage, SnAgCu solder materials have been shown to continually evolve in the mechanical properties. New doped SAC solder alloys have recently been introduced with the addition of Ni, Co, Au, P, Ga, Cu and Sb to SAC solder alloy to increase the robustness under prolonged thermal exposure. High strain-rate data on SAC solder alloys after prolonged storage operating at low operating temperatures is not available in published literature. In this paper, materials characterization of SAC (SAC105 and SAC-Q) solder after prolonged storage at low operating temperatures (−65°C–0 °C) and at high strain rates (10–75 per sec) has been studied. The fabricated SAC leadfree solder specimens were isothermally aged up to 12 months at 50°C before testing. Anand Viscoplastic model has been used to compute 9 anand parameters from measured Tensile data to describe the material constitutive behavior. The computed 9 anand parameters were used to verify the accuracy of the Anand model. A good correlation was found between experimental data and Anand predicted data.

Determination of High and Low Temperature High Strain Rate Mechanical Properties for SAC-R After Exposure to Isothermal Aging of 50°C Up To 8 Months

Electronic parts may be subjected to continuous activity at high temperatures as well as high strain-rate loads in the oil exploration industry, military, automotive, avionics, and space applications, and parts may be stored in non-climate-controlled enclosures prior to deployment. Material properties evolve at even moderate temperatures after a long period of storage, according to previous studies on undoped SAC alloys. To reduce the aging effects, a number of alloy formulations have been proposed. Data on the mechanical properties of lead-free solder alloys used for interconnection in electronic packaging at high strain rates and high storage temperatures is very important for design optimization of electronic package sustainability at extreme temperatures, since SAC soldiers have shown degradation of mechanical properties after prolonged exposure to storage temperature. The use of dopants in SAC solder has been proposed as a solution to minimize degradation. In this study, After keeping the samples in storage at 50°C for 1–8 months, a doped SAC solder called SAC-R (Ecolloy) was subjected to high strain rate testing. Uniaxial impact hammer tensile tests were conducted on samples with no aging and samples that had been aged for up to 8 months to assess the mechanical properties of SAC-R at high and low operating temperatures ranging from −65°C to 200°C and the Mechanical properties has been compared with an undoped solder SAC 105. The constants for the Anand Visco-Plasticity model were calculated using the material data for SAC-R. By comparing model predictions of the uniaxial tensile test with experimental results, the model’s ability to reflect material constitutive behavior has been quantified.

Grain-Scale Anisotropic Analysis of Steady-State Creep in Oligocrystalline SAC Solder Joints

Heterogeneous integration is leading to unprecedented miniaturization of solder joints, often with thousands of joints within a single package. The thermomechanical behavior of such SAC solder joints is critically important to assembly performance and reliability, but can be difficult to predict due to the significant joint-to-joint variability caused by the stochastic variability of the arrangement of a few highly-anisotropic grains in each joint. This study relies on grain-scale testing to characterize the mechanical behavior of such oligocrystalline solder joints, while a grain-scale modeling approach has been developed to assess the effect of microstructure that lacks statistical homogeneity. The contribution of the grain boundaries is modeled with isotropic cohesive elements and identified by an inverse iterative method that extracts material properties by comparing simulation with experimental measurements. The properties are extracted from the results of one test and validated by verifying reasonable agreement with test results from a different specimen. Equivalent creep strain heterogeneity within the same specimen and between different specimens are compared to assess typical variability due to the variability of microstructure.

High Strain Rate Mechanical Properties of SAC-Q Solder for Extreme Temperatures After Exposure to Isothermal Aging Up to 90 Days

In many industries, such as automotive, oil and gas, aerospace, medical technologies, electronic parts can often be exposed to high strain loads during shocks, vibrations and drop-impact conditions. Such electronic parts can often be subjected to extreme low and high temperatures ranging from -65oC to 200oC. Also, these electronic devices can be subjected to strain rates of 1 to 100 per second in the critical environment. Recently, many doped SAC solder alloys are being introduced in the electronic component e.g. SAC-Q, SAC-R, Innolot, etc. SAC-Q is made with addition of Bi in Sn-Ag-Cu are composition. Mechanical characteristic results and data for lead-free solder alloys are extremely important for optimizing electronic package reliability, at high temperature storage and elevated strain rates. Furthermore, the mechanical properties of solder alloys can be changed significantly due to a thermal aging, which is causing modification of microstructure. Data for the SAC-Q solder alloy with a high temp aging and testing at extreme low to high operating temperatures are not available.

High Strain Rate Low Temperature Properties for SAC-R After Exposure to Isothermal Aging

Electronic parts in military, automotive, avionics and space applications may be subjected to sustained operation at high temperature in addition to high strain-rate loads. Parts may be stored in non-climate-controlled enclosures prior to deployment. Earlier studies on undoped SAC alloys have shown that the material properties evolve after prolonged period of storage at even modest temperatures. In order to mitigate the aging effects, a number of alloy formulation have been proposed. Data of the mechanical properties of lead-free solder alloys which is used for interconnection in the electronic packaging at high strain rates and at high storage temperature is very essential for design optimization of electronic package sustainability at extreme temperature environment because the SAC solders have shown to have degradation in mechanical properties at prolonged exposure to storage temperature. Industries have come up with a solution to reduce the degradation using dopants in SAC solder. In this study, a doped SAC solder called SAC-R has been subjected to high strain rate testing after extended storage at temperature of 50°C for 1 month, 2 months and 3 months. Samples with no aging and aged samples for up to 3-months have been subjected to uniaxial tensile tests to measure the mechanical properties of SAC-R for High and Low operating temperature ranging from −65°C to +200°C. The material data has been used to compute the constants for the Anand Visco-Plasticity model. The ability of the model to represent the material constitutive behavior has been quantified by comparing the model predictions of the uniaxial tensile test with the experimental data.

On the 3-D Shape of Interlaced Regions in Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu Solder Balls

The microstructure of Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) solder joints plays an important role in the reliability of electronics, and interlaced twinning has been linked with improved performance. Here, we study the three-dimensional (3-D) shape of interlaced regions in Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu (SAC305) solder balls by combining serial sectioning with electron backscatter diffraction. In solder balls without large Ag3Sn plates, we show that the interlaced volume can be reasonably approximated as a hollow double cone with the common 〈100〉 twinning axis as the cone axis, and the 〈110〉 from all three twinned orientations making up the cone sides. This 3-D morphology can explain a range of partially interlaced morphologies in past work on 2-D cross-sections.