Characteristics of Accelerated Fatigue Tests by Cyclic Flexion of SMT PC boards

The critical problem by implementation the EU RoHS directive is assurance of existing level of electronic products reliability. For accelerated reliability testing of soldered joints was developed the test stand for mechanical cycling. The test samples of printed circuits with soldered components are bent with constant radius at all length of the printed circuit. Some information about mechanical testing of soldered joints are described in literature. FEM analysis and characteristics obtained by testing of SMT PC boards showed that new method can be useful and in certain cases it can replace expensive thermal cycling. First investigations showed that new method seems to be perspective, because of low costs and short test time, especially for testing of lead -free technology implemented by small producers of electronic equipment.