Solder Joint Reliability—Can Solder Creep?

Solder joint long‐term reliability is an ultimate requirement for electronics packaging. Solder joint failure, however, can involve complex mechanisms. One of many basic failure processes in metals/alloys is the creep phenomenon. Creep is defined as a time‐dependent deformation when a material is subjected to a stress for a prolonged period of time. This time‐dependent deformation can theoretically occur at any temperature above absolute zero. However, creep‐dominant failure normally occurs under high temperature in relation to the melting point of the material. Common solders are low temperature alloys with melting point or liquidus/solidus temperature in the range of 120–320°C. Therefore a detectable creep process under low level of mechanical load is expected even at ambient temperature. This paper presents the preliminary data on the comparative creep rate of twenty‐two common solder alloys and attempts to correlate the creep rate to the tensile strength, modulus, melting point and microstructure of alloys. The alloys under study include Sn/Pb, Sn/Pb/Ag, Sn/Ag, Sn/Sb, Sn/Pb/Bi, Sn/Pb/Sb, Sn/Bi, Sn/In, and Pb/In systems. This paper also discusses the proposed mechanisms for solder creep phenomena. It is hoped that the data in this work will provide additional fundamental mechanical properties of various solder alloys, which are much needed to facilitate the design of reliable solder joint structure.