Development of a Novel Microimpact-Fatigue Tester and Its Application to Impact Reliability of Lead-Free Solder Joints

Drop-impact forces cause portable electronic devices to fail. Assessment of resistance against drop-impact force is required to predict life of an electronic package. Several methods have been used to evaluate impact-fatigue life and other advanced methods have been proposed. However, such conventional impact tests require excessive time and cost. In this paper, a novel micro-impact-fatigue tester is developed to overcome such drawbacks of conventional methods. A newly developed impact-fatigue apparatus directly applies impact force to solder joints and measures deformation of the solder joints. The impact-fatigue test apparatus consists of an electromagnetic actuator, an impact-pin, a load-cell, a displacement sensor, and a main frame. Electromagnetic actuator produces a repeatable impact force with a changeable amplitude and pulse duration. Impact-fatigue apparatus was used to test reliability of a lead-free solder (96.5Sn4.0Ag0.5Cu). An evaluation of impact-fatigue life was performed over a wide range of 1-10⁴ cycles with various applied forces ranging from 40 N to 110 N. Two failure modes were observed in a section inspection. First type of failure was a mixed mode failure, where a bulk solder failure and interface failure coincide and the relation between the impact load and fatigue life is almost linear. Stress-based life-prediction model is proposed for the mixed mode failure. The second type of failure, interface failure between the Ni(P) layer and the solder, occurs under a high-load condition. Fatigue life is shorter in the second type of failure than in the mixed mode failure. Brittleness of the interface reduces the impact-fatigue life.