Multi-scale analysis of solder interconnects in micro-electronics

Considerable scientific efforts were made in the past decade, to come up with reliable and predictive analyses for lead-free solder interconnects, in view of their obligatory introduction a few years ago. This paper concentrates on a number of physical, computational and experimental multi-scale aspects, based on the analyses of the instabilities that occur in a Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) alloy. Particular attention is given on the most dominant interfacial damage mechanisms and related numerical methods that enable life time predictions in thermo-mechanical cycling.