Rheological characterisation of solder pastes and isotropic conductive adhesives used for flip-chip assembly

Solder pastes and isotropic conductive adhesives (ICAs) are widely used as a principal bonding medium in the electronic industry. This study investigates the rheological behaviour of the pastes (solder paste and isotropic conductive adhesives) used for flip-chip assembly. Oscillatory stress sweep test are performed to evaluate solid characteristic and cohesiveness of the lead-free solder pastes and isotropic conductive adhesive paste materials. The results show that the G′ (storage modulus) is higher than G″ (loss modulus) for the pastes material indicating a solid like behaviour. It result shows that the linear visco-elastic region for the pastes lies in a very small stress range, below 10 Pa. In addition, the stress at which the value of storage modulus is equal to that of loss modulus can be used as an indicator of the paste cohesiveness. The measured cross-over stress at G′ = G″ shows that the solder paste has higher stress at G′ = G″ compared to conductive adhesives. Creep-recovery test method is used to study the slump behaviour in the paste materials. The conductive adhesive paste shows a good recovery when compared to the solder pastes.