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Phase field modelling of the electromigration behaviour in sintered silver

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Abstract

Silver sintering has been a promising interconnect technique for high temperature electronics, but the electromigration behaviour of the achieved interconnect structure in service are yet to be fully understood. In this study, a phase field model is developed to study the electromigration behaviour of sintered silver with emphasizing on the migration kinetics of pores and morphology evolution of silver nanoparticles. Results show that the dihedral angle and sintering neck length as well as the migration velocity of the pores are larger with higher ratio of surface energy to grain boundary energy (γs/γgb). Under electric current stressing, the pores migrate to the cathode side and coalesce to form a large pore accompanied by the silver grain growth, larger γs/γgb leads to sharper increase of electrical resistance. The developed model and results provide insights to understand the electromigration behaviour and the open-circuit failure of sintered silver interconnects under electric current stressing.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51205135) and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2022A1515011511). H. Jiang wishes to acknowledge the financial support from China Scholarship Council (201806150013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK

    Han Jiang & Shuibao Liang

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Shuibao Liang & Changbo Ke

  3. School of Resource Engineering, Longyan University, Longyan, 364000, China

    Cheng Wei

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  1. Han Jiang
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Jiang, H., Liang, S., Wei, C. et al. Phase field modelling of the electromigration behaviour in sintered silver. Journal of Materials Research 37, 2322–2334 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-022-00635-w

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