Experimental study and life prediction on high cycle vibration fatigue in BGA packages

A technique and loading apparatus have been developed which allow ball grid array (BGA) packages to be visually inspected during high cycle vibration testing. This system provides controls for varying the cycling frequency and magnitude of the applied load. The failures of solder interconnects in BGA specimens were recorded by a direct visual monitoring method. Stroboscopic video was employed to freeze the motion of the vibrating solder interconnects while showing the real-time evolution of failure. In all test cases, BGA interconnect failure was observed to be the result of crack initiation and propagation along the nickel/solder interface. A primary crack developed at one edge of the interconnect and progressed stably until a secondary crack initiated from the opposite edge. The crack growth accelerated until these cracks coalesced, resulting in complete separation of the interconnect. The percentages of time spent in crack initiation, stable propagation and accelerated propagation are, on the order of 15%, 60% and 25%, respectively. Vibration tests at frequencies ranging from 50 to 100 Hz were performed and the number of cycles to failure was found to be frequency-independent in this range.Several commonly used damage mechanics and fracture mechanics fatigue life-prediction models are examined based on failure parameters computed from a nonlinear finite element analysis. It was found that while the damage models examined show large discrepancies between predicted and actual cycles-to-failure, the fracture model correlates with the test data within a factor of 1.5.