Practical assessment of tin whisker growth risk due to environmental temperature variations

Author

Su, Peng ; Lee, C.J. ; Li, Li ; Xue, Jie ; Khan, Boaz ; Moazeni, Reza ; Hartranft, Marc

Author_Institution

Component Quality & Technol., Cisco Syst., Inc., San Jose, CA

fYear

2009

fDate

26-29 May 2009

Firstpage

736

Lastpage

741

Abstract

Tin (Sn) whisker growth on semiconductor component leads with pure Sn or high Sn-content plating finishes remains to be a reliability concern for electronic system manufacturers. One of the driving forces for whisker growth is thermal stresses in the finishes induced by environmental temperature variations. These stresses are most significant when the leadframe material and the tin finishes have large differences in coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch. As a result, excessive environmental temperature variations can increase the risk of whisker growth.

Keywords

thermal expansion; thermal stresses; whiskers (crystal); coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch; electronic system reliability; environmental temperature variations; semiconductor component; thermal stresses; tin whisker growth risk; Assembly; Circuit testing; Copper alloys; Lead; Packaging; Performance evaluation; Temperature distribution; Thermal force; Thermal stresses; Tin;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronic Components and Technology Conference, 2009. ECTC 2009. 59th

Conference_Location

San Diego, CA

ISSN

0569-5503

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4475-5

Electronic_ISBN

0569-5503

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ECTC.2009.5074095

Filename

5074095