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9, SEPTEMBER 2015
Abstract— Common damage accumulation rules fail to predict strain region (global recrystallization) followed by crack prop-
the fatigue life of solder joints under realistic service conditions agation along this network [2]. Damage in isothermal cycling
where cycling amplitudes vary over time. A modification of occurs by transgranular crack growth through the bulk sol-
Miner’s rule of linear damage accumulation has been proposed
that accounts for effects of amplitude variations in, for example, der [3]–[7]. This paper is relevant only to isothermal cycling.
the vibration of microelectronic assemblies with lead-free solder The common approach to the assessment of fatigue life is
joints on the average or characteristic fatigue life. We are, based on conducting an accelerated test and then extrapolating
however, obviously much more concerned with the first failure the test results to predict the service life. The accelerated
across a very large sample set. Prediction of, say, the first failure test is usually done by applying a fixed amplitude in cycling
out of 10 000 or a million would require the extrapolation of
experimental failure distributions and the assumption of a shape until failure. However, in realistic applications, electronic
of this distribution. Even qualitative comparisons of accelerated assemblies are usually subjected to varying amplitude cycling
test results and their scatter should account for effects of for a long period of time. The varying amplitude cycling
amplitude variations. We have argued that the long-term life tends to reduce the fatigue life significantly compared with
of solder joints in vibration or cyclic bending is limited by the an assessment based on fixed amplitude cycling and linear
accumulation of inelastic work, and that much can be learned
from the low cycle fatigue behavior in shear. Individual ball grid damage accumulation rules [8]. As we shall see, it also leads
array scale SAC305 and SAC105 solder joints were cycled in to stronger statistical variations.
shear at room temperature with combinations of two different Reliability models are usually used to calculate the
stress amplitudes. Relying on our modified Miner’s rule and the average or characteristic fatigue life of solder joints under
associated understanding of the effects of amplitude variations, the conditions of interest. However, the major concern in
we show that the statistical uncertainty in the fatigue life of
solder joints under a specific set of realistic service conditions realistic applications is of course much earlier failures. This
must be significantly greater than measured in fixed amplitude is because, for example, an electronic product has many
cycling tests. The predicted failure distribution was best fit by thousands of solder joints and it will fail when the first
a Weibull distribution over a limited range, but we argue that solder joint fails. Also, we are really concerned with the first
the assumption of such a distribution is likely to be increasingly failure among a large number of such products. Prediction of
conservative when it comes to the prediction of earlier failure.
Estimates are provided for the potential errors. very early failure, say the first failure in millions, is almost
impossible. Instead, reliability assessments commonly rely
Index Terms— Fatigue, first failure, reliability, solder. on the comparison of accelerated test results and their scatter
I. I NTRODUCTION to previous products or experience. People often refer to the
time or number of cycles until 1% cumulative failure [9] but
Fig. 4. Weibull probability plot of the steady-state work per cycle at 16 MPa
of SAC305 solder joints.
Fig. 6. Correlation between the steady-state work per cycle and fatigue life
of SAC305 solder joints cycled at 16 MPa until failure.
Fig. 8. Histogram plot of the slope of work amplification α for SAC305
solder joints cycled in a combination of 50 cycles at 16 MPa and 3 cycles
at 24 MPa.
Fig. 13. Predicted remaining life of SAC305 solder joints after applying
eight repeated sequences of 10 cycles at 16 MPa and 3 cycles at 24 MPa.
Fig. 10. Lognormal probability plot of the slope of work amplification α for
SAC305 solder joints cycled in a combination of 50 cycles at 16 MPa and
3 cycles at 28 MPa. the steady-state work per cycle versus the slope of work
amplification α for the 30 SAC305 solder joints tested in
the above combination of 16 and 24 MPa. It is obvious
that there is no simple correlation. The correlation coefficient
is 0.013, i.e., very close to zero. This suggests that the
statistical uncertainty in the fatigue life of solder joints under
a specific set of realistic service conditions is likely to be
significantly greater than measured in fixed amplitude cycling.
We note, however, that to the extent that the work and the
amplification both vary with Sn grain orientation and the
distribution of Ag3 Sn precipitates, albeit quite differently, they
cannot be viewed as varying independently when calculating
the variability in life.
In general, higher values for α and the steady-state work
per cycle lead to lower fatigue life for the same combina-
tion of amplitudes, and thus a greater deviation from the
Fig. 11. Lognormal probability plot of the slope of work amplification α for Miner’s rule prediction. A previous publication showed that
SAC105 solder joints cycled in a combination of 50 cycles at 12 MPa and the worst combination of two amplitudes where the lower one
3 cycles at 24 MPa.
was 16 MPa or higher would be 10 cycles at 16MPa and
3 cycles at 24 MPa [8]. According to our modified Miner’s
rule repeating this sequence eight times would lead to an
average remaining fatigue life of 22.6% of the original 16 MPa
life (N16 MPa ), while Miner’s rule predicted 89.7%. Fig. 13
shows the remaining life of the 30 SAC305 solder joints to
vary between 10% and 68% of N16 MPa . The worst samples
were the ones with a combination of relatively high steady-
state work per cycle and high slope of amplification α. Fig. 14
is the same as Fig. 12 but with the remaining fatigue life of
the worst and best solder joints indicated.
It is quite common to account for variability in a qualitative
sense by referring to the time or number of cycles until
Fig. 12. Steady-state work per cycle versus the slope of amplification α for 1% cumulative failure [9]. This requires only very limited
SAC305 solder joints tested in the above combination of 16 and 24 MPa. extrapolation. Consider the example above. According to
Miner’s rule preconditioning, a large number of SAC305 joints
we therefore ignore the scatter in this and take the fatigue life by applying eight repeated sequences of 10 cycles at 16 MPa
at that amplitude to equal the characteristic life (N63 ). Based and 3 cycles at 24 MPa should reduce the average remaining
on this, we then predict the remaining fatigue life of each life at 16 MPa to 89.7% of the original value (N16 MPa ), and
SAC305 solder joint at a fixed amplitude of 16 MPa after the 1% of the samples should fail after 41.3% of N16 MPa . Fig. 15
varying amplitude cycling. shows the results from Fig. 13 plotted against the distributions
The question arises as to whether there is a correla- most commonly used to fit reliability data. Both the Weibull
tion between the steady-state work per cycle and the work distribution and the lognormal distribution fit the very limited
amplification across the different joints. Fig. 12 shows present data set very well. In fact, even a normal distribution
HAMASHA et al.: STATISTICAL VARIATIONS OF SOLDER JOINT FATIGUE LIFE UNDER REALISTIC SERVICE CONDITIONS 1289
Fig. 14. Remaining fatigue life of the worst and best SAC305 solder joints
indicated on plot of the steady-state work per cycle versus slope of work
amplification α (Fig. 12). Fig. 16. Histogram plot of the remaining life as a number of cycles calculated
using Monte Carlo simulation.
Fig. 15. Statistical distribution plots of the remaining life of SAC305 solder
joints in varying amplitude cycling. Fig. 17. Weibull probability plot of the remaining life as a number of cycles
calculated using Monte Carlo simulation.
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