• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.103-111
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• 2017

In this study, the thermomechanical stress and fatigue analysis of a high voltage and high current (3,300 V/1200 A) insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module used for electric locomotive applications were performed under thermal cycling condition. Especially, the reliability of the copper wire and the ribbon wire were compared with that of the conventional aluminum wire. The copper wire showed three times higher stress than the aluminum wire. The ribbon type wire showed a higher stress than the circular type wire, and the copper ribbon wire showed the highest stress. The fatigue analysis results of the chip solder connecting the chip and the direct bond copper (DBC) indicated that the crack of the solder mainly occurred at the outer edge of the solder. In case of the circular wire, cracking of the solder occurred at 35,000 thermal cycles, and the crack area in the copper wire was larger than that of the aluminum wire. On the other hand, when the ribbon wire was used, the crack area was smaller than that of the circular wire. In case of the solder existing between DBC and base plate, the crack growth rate was similar regardless of the material and shape of the wire. However, cracking occurred earlier than chip solder, and more than half of the solder was failed at 40,000 cycles. Therefore, it is expected that the reliability of the solder between DBC and base plate would be worse than the chip solder.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2010

Pb-Sn solder is rapidly being replaced by lead-free solder for board-level interconnection in microelectronic package assemblies due to the environmental protection requirement. There is a general lack of mechanical reliability information available on the lead-free solder. In this study, thermo-mechanical behaviors of wire-bond plastic ball grid array (WB-PBGA) package assemblies are characterized by high-sensitivity moire interferometry. Experiments are conducted for two types of WB-PBGA packages that have Pb-Sn solder and lead-free solder as joint interconnections. Using real-time moire setup, fringe patterns are recorded and analyzed for several temperatures. Bending deformations of the assemblies and average strains of the solder balls are investigated and compared for the two type of WB-PBGA package assemblies. Results show that shear strain in #3 solder ball located near the chip shadow boundary is dominant for the failure of the package with Pb-Sn solder, while normal strain in #7 most outer solder ball is dominant for that with lead-free solder. It is also shown that the package with lead-free solder has much larger bending deformation and 10% larger maximum effective strain than the package with Pb-Sn solder at same temperature level.