Ag<sub>3</sub>Sn Compounds Coarsening Behaviors in Micro-Joints

oleh: Ye Tian, Ning Ren, Zhihua Zhao, Fengshun Wu, Suresh K. Sitaraman

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2018-12-01

Deskripsi

As solder joints are being scaled down, intermetallic compounds (IMCs) are playing an increasingly critical role in the reliability of solder joints, and thereby an in-depth understanding of IMCs microstructure evolutions in micro-joints is of great significance. This study focused on coarsening behaviors of Ag<sub>3</sub>Sn compounds in Sn-3.0Ag-0.5Cu (SAC305) micro-joints of flip chip assemblies using thermal shock (TS) tests. The results showed that the Ag<sub>3</sub>Sn compounds grew and rapidly coarsened into larger ones as TS cycles increased. Compared with such coarsening behaviors during thermal aging, TS exhibited a significantly accelerating influence. This predominant contribution is quantitatively determined to be induced by strain-enhanced aging. Moreover, based on observations for Ag<sub>3</sub>Sn microstructure evolutions during TS cycling, one particular finding showed that there are two types of coarsening modes (i.e., Ostwald ripening and Necking coalescence) co-existing in the Ag<sub>3</sub>Sn coarsening process. The corresponding evolutions mechanism was elucidated in a combination of simulative analysis and experimental validation. Furthermore, a kinetic model of the Ag<sub>3</sub>Sn coarsening was established incorporating static aging and strain-enhanced aging constant, the growth exponent (<i>n</i>) was calculated to be 1.70, and the predominant coarsening mode was confirmed to be the necking coalescence.