Alloy 42 — A Material to be Avoided for Surface Mount Component Leads and Lead Frames

Alloy 42 and, similarly, Kovar were developed to provide metallic feed‐throughs from the interior of ceramic components to the exterior. The low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of ceramic needs to be almost matched by the feed‐through metal to allow reliable hermetically sealed connections. For this purpose these alloys have served very well. However, because of its wide‐spread use for military applications, for which component hermeticity has been required, as well as because of the easier attachment of low‐CTE die to low‐CTE lead frames, Alloy 42 has found its way into plastic components with often disastrous results. When surface mount solder joints connect materials with different CTEs, global thermal expansion mismatches result. Also, if the materials to which the solder bonds have CTEs that differ from the CTE of solder, local thermal expansion mismatches result. These thermal expansion mismatches are the cause of most SM solder joint failures. Alloy 42 and Kovar not only cause significant global and local thermal expansion mismatches, but are inherently more difficult to solder because of the low solubility of nickel and iron, the main constituents of these alloys, in tin. Pull tests of solder joints show that under the best of circumstances a solder joint that includes an Alloy 42 or Kovar surface is only half as strong as one made to copper surfaces.