On the degradation of the solder joints of underfilled flip chip packages: a case study Available to Purchase

The lifetime of flip chip solder joints can be greatly increased by applying underfill encapsulation. This paper presents a case study where the thermal cycle lifetime was increased by more than 20 times, that is from ∼100 cycles to more than 2,000 cycles for a chip size of 5.6mm × 6.3mm. By combining electrical, acoustic and metallographic investigation, the degradation of the solder joints was monitored, some important factors relevant to solder joint reliability were analysed and discussed. Delamination was found not to be the dominant failure mode.