Vibration response of printed circuit board in wide range of temperature. Characterization of PCB materials

Stiffness of printed circuit boards (PCB) has a great impact on reliability of solder joints. Vibrations or external stress loading lead to stress accumulation within solder joint area. Depending on intensity, inducted stress can be relieved by creep or fractures of solder joint. Intensity of inducted stress depends on loading conditions as well as properties of joined materials (specially stiffness of printed circuit boards).Crucial parameters such as stiffness and Tg depends on the producer of laminate. Therefore accurate evaluation of PCB material is a basis for improvement of equipment reliability. Nowadays, when the number of producers and the mass of FR4 laminate imported from Asia is rapidly increasing, it is specially important to have the complete knowledge about parameters of used materials. Dedicated, designed stand will be applied to determine vibration response of printed circuit boards. The novel solutions implemented will ensure high accuracy of measurements. Proposed method for vibration response characterization will be cheaper to standard method that bases on scanning laser vibrometer. The stand will be used to determine changes of FR4 stiffness in wide range of temperature (for example from − 20 to 130 °C) and Tg parameter. Within the frame of the paper, measuring stand and the results of performed evaluations are described