A reliability study on tin based lead free micro joint including intermetallic and void evolution

In microelectronics soldering to Cu pad lead to formation of two intermetallic structures in the solder -pad interface. The growth of these layers is accompanied by microscopic voids that usually cause reliability concern in the industry. Therefore it is important to understand factors that contribute for the growth of IMC using various combination of reflow time, Sn thickness and aging temperature. Systematic study was conducted on Cu-Sn system to investigate the formation and growth of intermetallic compound (IMC) as well as voiding evolution for different solder thicknesses. The growth of the Cu6Sn5 IMC layer was found to be increasing as the Sn thicknesses increase after reflow while the Cu3Sn layer were decreasing under same conditions. Also after reflow and aging more voiding were shown to occur in the thin solder than thicker one.