An investigation on thermal reliability of underfilled PBGA solder joints

The failure mechanism, as well as cycles to failure, of two groups of PBGA samples (with/without underfill) for thermal shock in the range of -40□-125□ were presented. The experiment shows that the solder ball in the samples without underfill cracked after 500 times cycle, while no crack was found in the underfilled samples even after 2700 cycles. However, the die attach layer delaminated after 500 cycles and the PCB cracked in the underfilled samples after long time cycling. C-SAM is employed to investigate the delamination in the underfilled samples. Highly concentrated stress-strain induced by the CTE mismatch between the BGA component and the PCB, coarsened grain and two kinds of intermetallic compounds (Ni₃Sn₂/NiSn₄) which formed during reflow and thermal cycling and their impact on the reliability of solder joints are discussed in this paper. The initiation of the crack and its propagation are also presented in this paper. By means of dye penetrant test, the authors reveal the distribution of microcracks in the solder ball array. In addition, this paper includes results of simulation, which further verified its conclusions.