Fracture Simulation of Solder Joints by a Lattice Model

Solder joints serve as mechanical, thermal and electrical interconnections between the electronic packages and the printed circuit board (PCB). Fracture of the solder joint is the most common failure mechanism in microsystem packages due to mechanical loads. In order to satisfy the demand for understanding the process of solder joint fracture, there is a need for a validated model, which is simple, reliable, and able to clarify of physics-of-failure of solder joint for design improvement. In this paper, the lattice model has been established to simulate the process of solder joint fracturing. The results show that the proposed lattice model can easily be used to predict the cracking of solder joint under tensile loading. The predicted crack pattern agrees well with that observed in experiments.