Investigating the thermomechanical properties and intermetallic layer formation of Bi micro-alloyed low-Ag content solders

In our research, we performed comparative analyses concerning various lead-free SAC (Sn96.5Ag3Cu0.5, Sn95.5Ag4Cu0.5) and two types of micro-alloyed SAC (SnAgCu + Bi + Sb) solder alloys. The mechanical properties of these solder alloys were characterised by measuring the shear strength of 0603 (1.5 × 0.75 mm) size chip resistors' joints. We designed a testboard, which contains fifty pieces of 0603 size resistors for mechanical characterisation and for measuring the thickness of intermetallic layers. During the experiment, twenty-eight pieces of testboards were soldered with vapour phase soldering (seven with each solder alloy) and sixteen of them were subjected to Thermal-Shock (TS) life-time tests with temperature range of +140 to −40 °C up to 2000 cycles. The intermetallic layer (IML) formation was investigated with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) methods; and the growth of the layer was analysed by measuring the IML thickness on cross-sectional samples after given TS cycles. It is shown that the thickness of the intermetallic layer in as-reflowed samples (samples without aging) depends on the silver content of the given alloy. Besides, the layer growth rate during Thermal Shock tests is affected by the number of intermetallic layer grain-boundaries along a unit of length.