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The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of conformal coating on the thermal cycling reliability of anisotropically conductive adhesive film (ACF) joined flip chip components on FR‐4 and polyimide (PI) substrates.

Test chips were joined using flip chip technology and an anisotropically conductive adhesive. The conformal coating used was parylene C and it was applied using the vapour deposition polymerisation method. The reliability of ACF joined flip chip components on FR‐4 and PI substrates was evaluated using −40/+85°C thermal cycling testing. Test lots with and without parylene C coating were studied. Additionally, one test lot with initial moisture inside the coating layer and a PI substrate was subjected to the test. The reliability results were analyzed using Weibull analysis and failure analysis was performed to study the failure mechanisms using cross sectioning and optical and scanning electron microscopy.

The results show a clear difference between the FR‐4 and PI substrate materials. PI substrate material proved to be reliable enough to withstand the thermal cycling testing. Two different occurrences of the first failures are seen and analyzed with FR‐4 substrates. The conformal coating layer did not seem to impair the reliability. Parylene C coating proved to be a reliable choice to protect, and even improve, the thermal cycling reliability of flip chip devices.

Usually, conformal coatings are studied in humidity tests. However, it is also vital to know whether the conformal coatings affect the reliability in thermal cycling and there is a lack of reliability studies in this area. This paper gives reliability data for conformal coating users about the influence of thermal cycling.

The purpose of this work is to undertake a comparison of accelerated test regimes for assessing the reliability of solder joints, in particular those made using lead‐free solders.

Identical samples of 1206, 0805 and 0603 resistors were subjected to six different cycling regimes to investigate the effect of thermal excursions, ramp rates and temperature dwells.

The most damage to joints was found to be caused by thermal cycling between −55 and 125°C, with a 10°C/min ramp rate and 5 min dwells. Large thermal excursions were shown to give faster results without compromising the failure mode.

Similar degrees of damage in the lead‐free solder joints were experienced from thermal shock regimes with ramp rates in excess of 50°C/min. However, these regimes, although faster to undertake, appeared to cause different crack propagation modes than observed with the thermal cycling regimes. However, these differences may be small and thermal shock testing may still be used to differentiate between, or enable ranking of, the effects of changes to materials or processes on the reliability of the solder joints. Hence, it is envisaged that if a wide range of conditions are to be tested a first sift can be completed using thermal shock, with the final work using typical thermal cycling conditions.

The difference between the SAC (95.5Sn3.8Ag0.7Cu) and SnAg (96.5Sn3.5Ag) solder alloy results across all types of cycles showed very little difference in the rates of joint degradation.

This paper compares relative reliability (remaining shear strength) of three chip components soldered with two lead‐free alloys based on various thermal cycling conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to determine: how the thermal cycling aging affects the ratcheting behavior of anisotropic conductive adhesive film (ACF); how the loading conditions and loading history affect the ratcheting strain and strain rate of ACF with different thermal cycling aging histories.

The ACF of CP6920F was cured at 190°C in an electro-thermal vacuum drying apparatus for 30 s. The cured specimens were put into the thermal cycling chamber (−40-150°C) for aging to 25, 50, 100, 200 and 500 cycles. A series of uniaxial ratcheting tests of aged ACF after different thermal cycles was carried out under stress control at 80°C.

The ACF subjected to larger number of thermal aging cycles exhibits less ratcheting strain under the same loading conditions. The ACF with the same thermal cycling aging history shows more ratcheting strain and a higher ratcheting strain rate when loaded under a larger mean stress or stress amplitude or a lower loading rate. The ratcheting behavior of aged ACF is found to be more sensitive to the lower loading rate. The higher mean stress (or stress amplitude) enhances the deformation resistance and consequently restrains the ratcheting strain of subsequent cycling with a lower mean stress (or stress amplitude). The prior lower loading rate accelerates the plastic deformation more significantly than the higher one.

The influencing trends of thermal cycling aging, loading condition and loading history on ratcheting behavior of ACF are obtained, which is important for the design and safety assessment of ACF joints.

Telecom equipment is subject to thermal cycles caused by both variations in temperature between day and night and variations in the telephone traffic. To simulate such thermal excursions, accelerated thermal cycle testing between — 10°C and 100°C has been established as a standard method within Ericsson Telecom. Thermal cycle tests have been carried out for frequencies ranging from one cycle per day to 30 cycles per hour in order to cover the different thermal excursions that occur in telecom equipment. It has been found that the life of a surface mounted PWB assembly can be predicted from the accelerated testing results using a frequency modified Coffin‐Manson relation. Factors which influence the fatigue life of solder joints such as solder material, compliant leads, compliant surface layers and mismatch between package and board are discussed. Based on results from accelerated testing it is suggested that the optimal PWB design for leadless ceramic chip carriers should be a moderate TCE matching combined with a compliant surface layer.

Aims to show that with careful modelling, the fatigue life of solder joints of identical geometry and microstructure can be predicted very accurately (through empirical correlations) under different environmental test or field use conditions. Here, on the TI 144 chip ‐scale package, the empirical correlation for fatigue life developed under thermal cycling conditions is used to predict the life under power cycling. This accurate model has served as the physical basis which in to demonstrate quantitatively the equivalence of thermal cycling and power cycling as valid accelerated life tests. Describes the great importance of spatial refinement, temporal refinement, and accurate boundary conditions, including the often ignored natural convection boundary conditions, and their effect on predicted life.

This study aims to investigate simultaneous power and thermal loading.

Finite element method simulations coupled with experiments.

The effects of power cycling have been determined.

This paper aims to testify the combined effects of thermal and power cycling loads on the reliability of solder ball joints with barrel- and hourglass-type geometries in an electronic system. The finite element simulation outcomes showed that the maximum strain energy was accumulated at the edges of barrel-type solder, whereas the hourglass-type was vulnerable at the necking side. It was also found that the hourglass-type solder showed a reliable behavior when the sole thermal cycling was exerted to the electronic system, whereas the barrel-type solder was a better choice under simultaneous application of thermal and power loadings. The experimental results also confirmed the finite element simulation and indicated that the solder joint reliability strongly depends on the geometry of interconnection in different operating conditions. An extensive discussion was presented to shed light on the paramount importance of combined thermal/power cycling on the reliability of solder joints.

This study aims to investigate the thermal fracture mechanism of moisture-preconditioned SAC305 ball grid array (BGA) solder joints subjected to multiple reflow and thermal cycling.

The BGA package samples are subjected to JEDEC Level 1 accelerated moisture treatment (85 °C/85%RH/168 h) with five times reflow at 270 °C. This is followed by multiple thermal cycling from 0 °C to 100 °C for 40 min per cycle, per IPC-7351B standards. For fracture investigation, the cross-sections of the samples are examined and analysed using the dye-and-pry technique and backscattered scanning electron microscopy. The packages' microstructures are characterized using an energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy approach. Also, the package assembly is investigated using the Darveaux numerical simulation method.

The study found that critical strain density is exhibited at the component pad/solder interface of the solder joint located at the most distant point from the axes of symmetry of the package assembly. The fracture mechanism is a crack fracture formed at the solder's exterior edges and grows across the joint's transverse section. It was established that Au content in the formed intermetallic compound greatly impacts fracture growth in the solder joint interface, with a composition above 5 Wt.% Au regarded as an unsafe level for reliability. The elongation of the crack is aided by the brittle nature of the Au-Sn interface through which the crack propagates. It is inferred that refining the solder matrix elemental compound can strengthen and improve the reliability of solder joints.

Inspection lead time and additional manufacturing expenses spent on investigating reliability issues in BGA solder joints can be reduced using the study's findings on understanding the solder joint fracture mechanism.

Limited studies exist on the thermal fracture mechanism of moisture-preconditioned BGA solder joints exposed to both multiple reflow and thermal cycling. This study applied both numerical and experimental techniques to examine the reliability issue.

An installation has been developed for carrying out thermal cycling experiments on soldered SMT joints. Using this thermal cycle installation (which was developed by the authors) and a simulated chip carrier, study has been made of the influence of various factors on the reliability of soldered SMT joints during thermal cycling. These factors include the position of the soldered joint, the temperature range of the thermal cycle, the dwell time, etc.

In Part 1, background information on mechanical properties and metallurgy of solder alloys and soldered joints has been presented. In Part 2, mechanisms of damage and degradation of components and soldered joints during soldering, transport and field life have been discussed, the most important mechanism being low cycle fatigue of the solder metal. In this third part, the determination of the fatigue life expectancy of soldered joints is discussed. Accelerated testing of fatigue is needed, as the possibilities of calculations are strongly limited. A temperature cycle test under specified conditions is proposed as a standard. A model is worked out for the determination of the acceleration factor of this test. A compilation of a number of solder fatigue test results, generated in the author's company, is presented.

The purpose of this paper is to study the drop reliability of ball-grid array (BGA) solder joints affected by thermal cycling.

The drop test was made with the two kinds of chip samples with the thermal cycling or not. Then, the dyeing process was taken by these samples. Finally, through observing the metallographic analysis results, the conclusions could be found.

It is observed that the solder joint cracks which were only subjected to drop loads without thermal cycling appeared near the BGA package pads. The solder joint cracks which were subjected to drop loads with thermal cycling appear near the printed circuit board pads.

This paper obtains the solder joint cracks picture with drop test under the thermal cycling.