Size and volume effects in microscale solder joint of electronic packaging

Due to the size and volume of solder joint interconnection in electronic packaging structures continue to be much smaller and smaller, many properties and behaviors of microscale solder joints are obviously different from those of bulk solder materials, that is, so-called solder joint size/volume effects occurs for the ever-increasing miniaturization trend of modern electronic products. In this paper, the influence of solder size and volume on the intermetallic compounds (IMCs) formation reaction (i.e., interfacial reactions), growth, evolution at the solder/substrate interface and the mechanical properties (e.g., tensile property, shear property, creep property and fatigue property) of microscale solder joint interconnections were reviewed. In addition, a few development trends of size and volume effects in electronic packaging were also proposed.