Strengthened Solder Materials for Electronic Packaging

Conventional solder materials are generally low temperature and low strength materials which are particularly vulnerable to temperature and stress. Even under ambient temperature, 298±5°K, the homologous temperature of most soft solder compositions exceeds 0.5. It is therefore anticipated that the properties and behaviour of such solder compositions could alter significantly when they are exposed to temperature change, temperature rise and/or a moderate level of stresses. With the continued innovation and development of microelectronic packages along with the intense global competition, the reliability of solder joints and the quality and yield of making solder joints in production become increasingly important. This research is to address the fundamental material deficiencies of conventional solders in an effort to develop superior solder materials. Several material principles have been considered including both intrinsic material and soldering process approaches. This paper presents the preliminary results of strengthening effects from the intrinsic material approach. The soldering process effects will be presented in a separate paper. The strengthening effects were evaluated by the combined consideration of monotonic shearing, creep and isothermal low cycle fatigue tests. Fatigue fractography and microstructure of the strengthened solder were characterised in comparison with conventional 63Sn/37Pb solder. The results showed that the proprietary solder system possesses a higher monotonic flow resistance as cyclic frequency decreases to 10−4 Hz. Deformation mechanisms and fatigue failure modes are also discussed in this paper.