Relaxation investigation on durability for terminals of CPU socket connectors

Terminals of a central processor unit (CPU) socket connector dominate the signal transmissions between the CPU and a motherboard. Contact forces between the terminal of an electronic connector and the corresponding counterparts, generally required to be within a suitable range, are usually strongly related to the quality of the signal transmission. However, the contact force of these terminals could decay gradually due to the stress relaxation effect under the high temperature conditions. In this study, a finite element analysis is conducted to construct relationships between the contact force and the duration period based on the specifications of field life acceleration test (FLAT) and thermal cyclic test (TCT) of the Electronic Industry Association (EIA).