Effect of solder joint volume on its shear fracture mode

The crack behavior of the chip-scale 0603 (1.5 × 0.75 mm) size resistor was investigated during shear test, while the amount of the solder alloy was decreased. The resistors were soldered with the same thermal profile using vapor phase reflow soldering technique. During the sample preparation the aperture size of the stencils were decreased while the thickness of the stencil foils was the same in all cases. The minimum applied surface ratio was 0.66. After shear tests, the surface of the cracked area was investigated with optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). With energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), the composition of the investigated layers was detected and it helped to recognize the layer-structure.