Abstract
The intermetallic compound growth in Sn/Cu and Sn–3.5Ag/Cu solder joints undergoing cooling has been in-situ observed using synchrotron radiation X-ray imaging technique. The overall thickness of intermetallic compound attained during cooling condition is dependent on the rates of Cu precipitation or deposition from the bulk solder and Cu diffusion from grain boundary at interface. Although the net increase in IMC thickness contributed predominantly by deposition kinetics is greater for air cooling than in furnace cooling from the start temperature of \(300\,^\circ \hbox {C}\) for the first 20 min, the former solidifies before 30 min and the latter stays in liquid state for 1 h due to slower cooling rate and attains a bigger IMC of size about 14.5 \(\upmu \)m. In context of Sn–3.5Ag solders subjected to air cooling from 275 \(^\circ \)C, the presence of Ag contributes to the increment in overall IMC thickness during the cooling period. For the improvement in solder joints reliability, faster cooling rate and limiting the Ag content can be employed as the materials design and processing parameters.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
K.H. Prakash, T. Sritharan, Interface reaction between copper and molten tin-lead solders. Acta Mater. 49(13), 2481–2489 (2001)
H. Xiaowu, X. Tao, X. Jiang, Y. Li, Y. Liu, Z. Min, Effects of post-reflow cooling rate and thermal aging on growth behavior of interfacial intermetallic compound between SAC305 solder and Cu substrate. Appl. Phys. A 122(4), 278 (2016)
T. Ventura, S. Terzi, M. Rappaz, A.K. Dahle, Effects of solidification kinetics on microstructure formation in binary Sn–Cu solder alloys. Acta Mater. 59(4), 1651–1658 (2011)
H.-Y. Hsiao, C.-M. Liu, H. Lin, T.-C. Liu, L. Chia-Ling, Y.-S. Huang, K.N.T. Chih Chen, Unidirectional growth of microbumps on (111)-oriented and nanotwinned copper. Science 336(6084), 1007–1010 (2012)
A. Kunwar, H. Ma, H. Ma, J. Sun, N. Zhao, M. Huang, On the increase of intermetallic compounds thickness at the cold side in liquid Sn and SnAg solders under thermal gradient. Mater. Lett. 172, 211–215 (2016)
Y.C. Chan, S.H. Fan, J.K.L. Lai, The effect of cooling rate on the growth of Cu–Sn intermetallics in annealed PBGA solder joints. J. Electron. Packag. 125(1), 153 (2003)
H.T. Ma, L. Qu, M.L. Huang, L.Y. Gu, N. Zhao, L. Wang, In-situ study on growth behavior of \(\text{ Ag }_3\text{ Sn }\) in Sn3.5Ag/Cu soldering reaction by synchrotron radiation real-time imaging technology. J. Alloys Compd. 537, 286–290 (2012)
L. Qu, H.T. Ma, H.J. Zhao, A. Kunwar, N. Zhao, In situ study on growth behavior of interfacial bubbles and its effect on interfacial reaction during a soldering process. Appl. Surf. Sci. 305, 133–138 (2014)
M.L. Huang, F. Yang, N. Zhao, Y.C. Yang, Synchrotron radiation real-time in situ study on dissolution and precipitation of \(\text{ Ag }_3\text{ Sn }\) plates in sub-50 \(\upmu \)m Sn–Ag–Cu solder bumps. J. Alloys Compd. 602, 281–284 (2014)
M.A.A. Mohd Salleh, S.D. McDonald, C.M. Gourlay, S.A. Belyakov,H. Yasuda, K. Nogita, Effect of Ni on the formation and growthof primary Cu6Sn5 intermetallics in Sn–0.7 wt.% Cu solder pasteson cu substrates during the soldering process. J.Electron. Mater. 45(1), 154–163 (2015)
M.A.A. Mohd Salleh, S.D. McDonald, H. Yasuda, A. Sugiyama, K. Nogita, Rapid \(\text{ Cu }_6\text{ Sn }_5\) growth at liquid Sn/solid Cu interfaces. Scripta Mater. 100, 17–20 (2015).
A. Kunwar, H. Ma, J. Sun, S. Li, J. Liu, Modeling the diffusion-driven growth of a pre-existing gas bubble in molten tin. Met. Mater. Int. 21(5), 962–970 (2015)
M.A.A. Mohd Salleh, S.D. McDonald, C.M. Gourlay, H. Yasuda, K. Nogita, Suppression of \(\text{ Cu }_6\text{ Sn }_5\) in \(\text{ TiO }_2\) reinforced solder joints after multiple reflow cycles. Mater. Des. 108, 418–428 (2016)
H. Xie, B. Deng, G. Du, Y. Fu, Y. He, H. Guo, G. Peng, Y. Xue, G. Zhou, Y. Ren, Y. Wang, R. Chen, Y. Tong, T. Xiao, X-ray biomedical imaging beamline at SSRF. J. Instrum. 8(08), C08003 (2013)
N. Cheung, N.S. Santos, J.M.V. Quaresma, G.S. Dulikravich, A. Garcia, Interfacial heat transfer coefficients and solidification of an aluminum alloy in a rotary continuous caster. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 52(1–2), 451–459 (2009)
T. Gancarz, W. Gasior, H. Henein, Physicochemical properties of Sb, Sn, Zn, and Sb–Sn system. Int. J. Thermophys. 34(2), 250–266 (2013)
T. Gancarz, Z. Moser, W. Gasior, J. Pstruś, H. Henein, A comparison of surface tension, viscosity, and density of Sn and SnAg alloys using different measurement techniques. Int. J. Thermophys. 32, 1210–1233 (2011)
F. Meydaneri, M. Gündüz, M. Özdemir, B. Saatçi, Determination of thermal conductivities of solid and liquid phases for rich-Sn compositions of Sn–Mg alloy. Met. Mater. Int. 18(1), 77–85 (2012)
D. Gaston, C. Newman, G. Hansen, D. Lebrun-Grandié, MOOSE: a parallel computational framework for coupled systems of nonlinear equations. Nucl. Eng. Des. 239(10), 1768–1778 (2009)
M.R. Tonks, D. Gaston, P.C. Millett, D. Andrs, P. Talbot, An object-oriented finite element framework for multiphysics phase field simulations. Comput. Mater. Sci. 51(1), 20–29 (2012)
A. Kunwar, H. Ma, H. Ma, B. Guo, Z. Meng, N. Zhao, M. Huang, On the thickness of \(\text{ Cu }_6\text{ Sn }_5\) compound at the anode of Cu/liquid Sn/Cu joints undergoing electromigration. J. Mater. Sci.: Mater. Electron. 27, 7699–7706 (2016)
A. Kunwar, H. Ma, M. Qi, J. Sun, L. Qu, B. Guo, N. Zhao, Y. Wang, H. Ma. Positive feedback on imposed thermal gradient by interfacial bubbles in Cu/liquid Sn–3.5Ag/Cu joints, in 17th International Conference on Electronic Packaging Technology (IEEE, Wuhan, 2016), pp. 608–611
J.F. Li, P.A. Agyakwa, C.M. Johnson, Interfacial reaction in Cu/Sn/Cu system during the transient liquid phase soldering process. Acta Mater. 59(3), 1198–1211 (2011)
M. Yang, Y. Cao, S. Joo, H. Chen, X. Ma, M. Li, \(\text{ Cu }_6\text{ Sn }_5\) precipitation during Sn-based solder/Cu joint solidification and its effects on the growth of interfacial intermetallic compounds. J. Alloys Compd. 582, 688–695 (2014)
H.-T. Ma, J. Wang, L. Qu, N. Zhao, A. Kunwar, A study on the physical properties and interfacial reactions with Cu substrate of rapidly solidified Sn–3.5Ag lead-free solder. J. Electron. Mater. 42(8), 2686–2695 (2013)
A. Kisasoz, S. Gurel, A. Karaaslan, Effects of annealing time and cooling rate on precipitations in duplex stainless steel. Met. Sci. Heat Treat. 57(1), 8–11 (2016)
M. Schaefer, R.A. Fournelle, J. Liang, Theory for intermetallic phase growth between cu and liquid Sn–Pb solder based on grain boundary diffusion control. J. Electron. Mater. 27(11), 1167–1176 (1998)
K.N. Tu, A.M. Gusak, I. Sobchenko, Linear rate of grain growth in thin films during deposition. Phys. Rev. B 67, 245408(1–5) (2003)
X. Liu, M. Huang, Y. Zhao, C.M.L. Wu, L. Wang, The adsorption of Ag\(_3\)Sn nano-particles on Cu–Sn intermetallic compounds of Sn–3Ag–0.5Cu/Cu during soldering. J. Alloys Compd. 492(1–2), 433–438 (2010)
D.Q. Yu, L. Wang, C.M.L. Wu, C.M.T. Law, The formation of nano-Ag\(_3\)Sn particles on the intermetallic compounds during wetting reaction. J. Alloys Compd. 389(1–2), 153–158 (2005)
X.C. Xie, X.C. Zhao, Y. Liu, J.W. Cheng, B. Zheng, Y. Gu, Effect of Ag addition on growth of the interfacial intermetallic compounds between Sn–0.7Cu solder and Cu substrate. Mater. Sci. Forum 815, 129–134 (2015)
M.L. Huang, F. Yang, N. Zhao, Thermomigration-induced asymmetrical precipitation of Ag\(_3\)Sn plates in micro-scale Cu/Sn3.5Ag/Cu interconnects. Mater. Des. 89, 116–120 (2016)
H.T. Lee, Y.F. Chen, Evolution of Ag\(_3\)Sn intermetallic compounds during solidification of eutectic Sn–3.5Ag solder. J. Alloys Compd. 509(5), 2510–2517 (2011)
L. Sun, L. Zhang, X. Le, S.-J. Zhong, J. Ma, L. Bao, Effect of nano-Al addition on properties and microstructure of low-Ag content Sn1Ag0.5Cu solders. J. Mater. Sci.: Mater. Electron. 27(7), 7665–7673 (2016)
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.: 51571049 and 51301030). The synchrotron radiation experiments were performed at the BL13W1 beam line of Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), China.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ma, H., Kunwar, A., Guo, B. et al. Effect of cooling condition and Ag on the growth of intermetallic compounds in Sn-based solder joints. Appl. Phys. A 122, 1052 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-0543-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-0543-4