The Influence of Elevated Temperature Aging on Reliability of Lead Free Solder Joints

The microstructure, mechanical response, and failure behavior of lead free solder joints in electronic assemblies are constantly evolving when exposed to isothermal aging and/or thermal cycling environments. In our prior work on aging effects (Ma, et al., ECTC 2006), we demonstrated that the observed material behavior variations of SAC405 and SAC305 lead free solders during room temperature aging (25 °C) were unexpectedly large and universally detrimental to reliability. Such effects for lead free solder materials are much more dramatic at the higher aging temperatures (e.g. 100-150°C) typical of the harsh environments present in high performance computing and in automotive, aerospace, and defense applications. However, there has been little work in the literature, and the work that has been done has concentrated on the degradation of solder ball shear strength (e.g. Dage Shear Tester). Current finite element models for solder joint reliability during thermal cycling accelerated life testing are based on traditional solder constitutive and failure models that do not evolve with material aging. Thus, there will be significant errors in the calculations with the new lead free SAC alloys that illustrate dramatic aging phenomena. In the current work, we have explored the effects of elevated temperature isothermal aging on the mechanical behavior and reliability of lead free solders. The effects of aging on mechanical behavior have been examined by performing stress-strain and creep tests on SAC405 and SAC305 samples that were aged for various durations (0-6 months) at several elevated temperatures (80, 100, 125, and 150 °C).