MicroImpact White Paper
MicroImpact White Paper
MicroImpact White Paper
Abstract High strain rate tends to raise the fracture toughness of ductile
materials while lowers the fracture toughness of brittle materials
This paper presents a summary of the fundamental theories [13]. Thus, the reliability of interconnections at drop impact will
behind board level drop impact covering the dynamics of drop be governed more by the fracture toughness of the brittle
impact assembly, dynamics of PCB, as well as interconnection intermetalics than by its bulk creep strength, as in the case of
stress. This is followed by a comprehensive study of the fracture temperature cycling. It follows that the solder alloys and pad
characteristics of solder interconnections under high-speed finishing that are ideal for temperature cycling may not be ideal
impact using a newly developed Instron Micro Impactor which for drop impact. While JEDEC prescribed board level drop test
provides both the fracture strength as well as fracture energy of standard may be used to evaluate the impact performance of
impact. The test matrix consists of five solder alloys, four pad solders and pad finishing, it is a very costly test and the shock and
finishing, three thermal histories, and two solder mask designs noise accompanying the test can be extremely annoying. Simpler
forming a total of 120 combinations. The test has highlighted and cheaper tests have been explored for investigating the impact
weakness in NSMD design and caution on SnAgCu solder when performance of interconnection joint, with potential as a routine
used in drop impact application. quality control test in component manufacturing environment.
Component level impact shear tests have been reported using
1. Introduction split Hopkinson bar technique [14] as well as miniature Charpy
test [15]. The former has reported inferior impact fracture
Miniaturisation of portable electronic products has contributed to strength of SnAgCu solder compared to eutectic SnPb solder
the vulnerability of board level interconnections to drop impact. while the later has reported superior impact fracture energy of
This has prompted a new JEDEC board level drop impact test the SnAgCu solder.
standard [1]. Drop experiments at the product level have
provided useful understanding of the dynamic response of the This paper presents a summary of the fundamental theories
PCB as a function of product type and impact angle [2-4]. behind the board level drop impact test, follows by a
Numerical simulation [5] and experimental validation [6,7] has comprehensive study of the characteristics of solder interconnects
confirmed differential flexing between the PCB and the IC under high speed impact using a newly developed Instron Micro
packages as the primary driver for the failure of board level Impactor which provides both the fracture strength as well as
interconnections in drop impact. Computational models have fracture energy of impact.
been used extensively to model the dynamics of the PCB as well as
the interconnection stresses due to board level drop impact [8-10,
5]. Analytical solutions that provide physical insights to the
dynamics of PCB [11] and the interconnection stresses have also
been presented [12,5,6].
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2. Fundamental Mechanics of Board For the initial conditions y(0)=Y(0)=0 and y(0)=Y(0)=-Vo,
Level Drop Impact as in the case of a board level drop impact, the solutions to the
equations of motion for the base can be shown to be
2.1 Dynamics of Drop Impact Test Assembly (4)
Fig 1a illustrates a typical board level drop test. In the typical
drop impact test, the base structure is prescribed with a half-sine
acceleration pulse of a defined amplitude and duration. In the and its acceleration expressed in terms of K, M, and the free-fall
experimental set-up, this prescribed acceleration pulse is height H is given by
achieved by manipulating the fall height and the stiffness of the
(5)
shock pad This is usually carried out haphazardly. An
understanding of the mechanics of this event will be useful for the
conduct of the experiment. This can be achieved by modeling the
drop assembly together with the shock pad simplistically as a It becomes clear that in carrying out the board level drop impact
combination of two spring-mass systems as illustrated in Fig 1b. experiment, one shall first select the shock pad with the
appropriate stiffness to produce the desired duration for base
PCB m
acceleration, follow by varying the free-fall height to produce the
k
Connector V desired amplitude of base acceleration.
Base y M
V
2.2 Dynamics of PCB
Shock Pad
Guide Rod
Y The base structure and the connectors are typically made of metal
K
whose longitudinal stiffness is much higher than the flexural
stiffness of the PCB. The half-sine acceleration pulse will
(a) (b)
therefore transmit to the PCB through the base and the
Figure 1: Typical board level drop impact (a) schematic (b) modelled
as 2 spring-mass systems
connectors with little distortion. As such, the analysis of a board
level drop impact may be reduced to modeling the PCB alone
where m and k are the representative mass and stiffness of the subjected to the half-sine acceleration pulse applied at its points
PCB respectively; M is the mass of the base structure, and K is the of mounting to the connectors.
stiffness of the shock pad. The equation of motion of the system
is given by eq(1) The dynamics of the PCB subjected to a half-sine acceleration
(1) pulse applied at its support may be analysed by modelling the
PCB as an Euler-Bernoulli beam simply supported at its ends as
depicted in Fig 2. The equation of motion is given by eq (6)
and the frequencies of the system can be shown to be given by
(2) (6)
L
y(x,t)
For a typical board level drop impact set up, Kk and eq(2) w(x,t)
(7)
is reduced to
t Y(t) t
(3)
y x
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(7a)
(8)
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connectivity
Electrical
flexing
width, De is the effective flexural stiffness of the PCB and IC
package, given by 1/De = 1/Dpcb + 1/Dpkg, Ar the ratio of the
Electrical open
package area to the total area of the interconnections, p the
Electrical closed
interconnection pitch, 3=sinh(x)cos(x), 2 4 6 8 10
4=cosh(x)sin(x) Time (ms)
Figure 5: One-to-one correspondence of PCB flexing and
electrical connectivity
The inertial stress due to the accelerations of the IC package and The characterisation work by [14] using split Hopkinson bar
its solder interconnections can be computed simply using technique has provided evidence of ductile-bulk solder to brittle-
DAlemberts Principle. It can be readily shown that the IMC failure transition for pristine ternary Pb-free solder ball on
interconnection stress due to board bending is 2 orders of electroless Ni-P/Au (ENIG) pad finishing when the shear speed
magnitude higher than that due to acceleration [5, 11]. The role was raised from 1 mm/min to 3 m/s. At the shear speed of 3 m/s,
of flexing has been demonstrated in an experiment using a single the Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu solder alloy exhibited only a third of the
daisy-chained CSP mounted at the centre of a PCB subjected to fracture strength of Sn37Pb solder alloy. Similar ductile-bulk to
standard drop test [6,7]. The fibre strain measurement on the brittle-IMC failure was also reported by [15] using miniature
PCB shows the flexing of PCB consisting of fundamental mode Charpy when the shear speed was raised from 0.2 mm/s to 1 m/s.
superimposed with the next higher mode (Fig 5). The electrical At the shear speed of 1 m/s, Sn3Ag0.5Cu solder, on both
connectivity became open after the PCB has flexed more than Cu-organic surface preservative (OSP) and ENIG pad finishing,
30% of the amplitude corresponds to the fundamental bending was found to have a third higher fracture energy than the
mode. This was interrupted by momentary closure of the circuit Sn37Pb solder alloy.
that corresponds in time with the higher bending mode. The
one-to-one correspondence of electrical connectivity and the fibre A possible reason for the discrepancy is that the two works did not
strain endorses board bending as the dominant failure driver. measure the same characteristic one measuring fracture
strength while another measuring fracture energy. The following
works investigate the component level characteristics of solder
balls in details using Instron Micro Impactor which gives both
fracture strength and fracture energy.
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3.1 Experiment
The sample consists of 400m solder ball on organic substrate.
The test matrix consists of 5 solder alloys, 4 pad finishes, 3
thermal histories, and 2 solder mask designs forming a total of
120 combinations. Each combination consists of at least 11
specimens, 5 of which were evaluated under static shearing and
the rest under impact shearing. The details are tabulated in
Table 1.
Solder alloys Sn37Pb
Sn3.5Ag
Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu
Sn2.5Ag0.8Cu0.5Sb
Sn58Bi
Pad finishes Electroless Ni-P/Au (ENIG) Figure 6: Static fracture strength of SMD (a) pristine (b) aged and TC
Hot air Sn37Pb solder levelling (HASL)
Organic surface preservative (OSP) Impact Fracture Strength & Fracture Modes
Immersion tin (Tin)
The impact fracture load of SMD_pristine system together with
Thermal As-reflow (pristine)
histories Thermal aging at 1250C for 125 hrs (Aged) fracture modes are depicted in Fig 7a. Observations: (i) The
Temperature cycle -400C to 1250C with 15 mins impact fracture strength of solder joint is generally higher than
dwell and 15 mins ramp for 500 cycle (TC) its static fracture strength. (ii) The impact fracture strength
Mask design Solder mask defined with 500m pad and
300m pad opening (SMD)
exhibits higher dispersion in data. (iii) SnAg solder exhibits the
Non-solder mask defined with 300m pad and highest while BiSn solder the lowest impact fracture strength. (iv)
500m mask opening (NSMD) SnPb solder exhibits predominantly bulk failure failure usually
Shear speed 50m/s using Dage BT100 (Static) occurs just beneath the shear tool. Pb-free solder, on the other
600 m/s using Instron Micro Impactor
(Impact)
hand, exhibit predominantly a mixture of IMC and bulk failure
failure usually occurs along the bond interface. Note that in most
cases even though the failure surface appeared visually as brittle
3.2 Results IMC, this was at times accompanied by traces of tin picked up by
Static Fracture Strength EDS. The definition of IMC + bulk use here therefore
Fig 6a depicts the static shear fracture load for SMD design, encompasses failure in the IMC as well as between IMC and the
pristine condition, (SMD_pristine) for the full combination of solder interface.
solder alloys and pad finishes and Fig 6b depicts the percentage
variation of fracture load after thermal aging and temperature The effect of thermal treatment is depicted in Fig 7b. Note that
cycling (TC) respectively. The following observations may be while aging induces diverse response from various solder alloys,
made: (i) There is no significant differences among the solder TC tends to reduce the impact fracture strength of all solder
alloys except for SnBi solder which exhibits significantly higher alloys. Note again the huge reduction in impact fracture
fracture strength. (ii) Both aging and TC reduces the static strength for the specific combination of BiSn solder with HASL
fracture strength, though it varies significantly with respect to pad pad finishing.
finishing. (iii) The specific combination of SnBi solder with HASL
pad finish exhibits a huge reduction in fracture strength. This is
believed to be attributed to the formation of low-melting point
ternary SnBiPb eutectic phase [16] when Bi from solder ball
alloys with SnPb from pad finishing.
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Figure 7 Impact fracture strength of SMD (a) pristine (b) aged and TC Figure 8 Impact fracture strength of NSMD (a) pristine (b) aged and TC
(a)
4 2
2 4
5
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
-2
8
2 (b)
Force (N)
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4 1
4
3
2 5
0
-2 0 0.1 0.2 0.3
Time (ms)
1SnPb, 2SnAg, 3SnAgCu, 4SnAgCuSb, 5BiSn
Figure 9 Typical force-time characteristics for SMD_pristine system
(a) ENIG (b) OSP
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Fig 12 presents the average value (over all solder alloys) of static
fracture strength, impact fracture strength, and impact fracture
energy for individual pad finishing normalised by the
Figure 10 Impact fracture energy of SMD (a) pristine (b) aged and TC corresponding average value of ENIG finishing. The finishing are
arranged in orders of increasing impact fracture strength. In
general, OSP and Tin finishing seems to outperform ENIG and
Summary of Results HASL in terms of both impact fracture strength and impact
Fig 11 presents the average value (over all pad finishing) of static fracture energy.
fracture strength, impact fracture strength, and impact fracture
energy for individual solder normalised by the corresponding
average value of SnPb solder. The solders are arranged in orders
of increasing impact fracture strength. Observations: (i) SnAgCu
solder while having comparable impact fracture strength as SnPb
solder, has much lower impact fracture energy. (ii) SnAg solder
seems to have the best impact characteristics, especially after
thermal treatment. (iii) BiSn solder while having the highest
static fracture strength has the lowest impact fracture strength
and fracture energy.
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Figure 13: Summary NSMD_pristine system (a) solder (b) pad finishing
Fractographs
Figure 14: Fractographs of SMD_pristine SnPb_OSP subjected to (a) static
Fig 14 presents the typical fractographs of SMD_pristine system shear, (b) impact shear; SnAgCu_OSP subjected to (c) static shear, (d)
for SnPb_OSP and SnAgCu_OSP subjected to static and impact impact shear
shearing. Note (i) the ductile bulk solder failure in the
SnPb_OSP system in both static and impact shearing, and (ii)
the ductile bulk solder to brittle IMC transition in the
SnAgCu_OSP system with increased shearing speed. Fig 15
presents the typical fractographs of NSMD_pristine system for
the same solder_finishing and loadings. Bulk solder failure
were observed in both systems under static shearing while
core material failure were observed in both systems under
impact shearing.
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[5] E.H. Wong, et al., Drop impact test Mechanics & physics
of failure, Proc 4th EPTC, pp. 327-333, 2002.
[6] E.H. Wong, et al., Fundamentals of drop impact,
presented in JEDEC working group meeting, Dec 2003.
[7] S.K.W. Seah, at al., Experiments and failure drivers in drop
impact of portables, JEDEX, San Jose, 2004
[8] T. Sogo, et al., Estimation of fall impact strength for BGA
solder joints, Proc. ICEP, pp. 369-373, 2001.
[9] L. Zhu, Submodeling technique for BGA reliability analysis
of CSP packaging subjected to an impact loading, Proc.
IPACK, 2001.
[10] J. Wang, et al., Modeling solder joint reliability of BGA
packages subject to drop impact loading using
submodelling, Proc. Abaqus Conference, 2002.
[11] E.H. Wong, Dynamics of board level drop impact, ASME
Trans. JEP, to be published in Jul issue 2005.
[12] E. Suhir, On a paradoxical phenomenon related to beams
on elastic foundation: Could external compliant leads
reduce the strength of a surface-mounted device?, J.
Applied Mechanics, 55:818, 1988.
[13] M.A. Meyers, Dynamic behavior of materials,
John Willey, 1994.
[14] D.M. Williamson, et al., Spall, quasi-static and high strain
rate shear strength data for electronic solder materials,
Internal report Cavendish Laboratory No. SP 1113,
Oct 2002.
[15] M. Date, et al., Impact reliability of solder joints, Proc 54
ECTC, pp. 668-674.
[16] J. Bath, et al., Research update: lead-free solder
alternatives, Circuit Assembly, May 2000 issue.
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